The Last Daughter -- Dragon-Blooded Sorcery School Quest

Vahelo cuts her way through the crowd with calm nonconcern, heading for one of the doors out of the room. As you follow her, you don't see anyone taking more than brief note of the two of you.

So, naturally, more than a few of them will have noticed, and will come to the correct conclusion within the hour. You're not particularly worried about that; idle gossip about two young women slipping out of a party together for a discreet good time is hardly going to hurt either of your reputations.

Vahelo lets a serving girl pass through one of the doors, before deftly catching it, and slipping out behind her. You follow, still trying to mimic her confidence, and the noise and music abruptly cuts off as you let the door close behind you.

The hallway you're standing in is relatively narrow, its dark walls covered by elaborate carvings that suggest dancing flames. "It's not far," Vahelo says, glancing back at you as she leads you on. "It should be empty, this time of day."

"You know the Palace well, then?" you ask.

"My mother is Sesus Leska. She commands our forces stationed permanently in Chanos," Vahelo says, tossing the name to you casually enough. "I've spent a great deal of time here, growing up."

It also explains the particularly familiar way Amiti had addressed her earlier. Presumably, she, Vahelo, and Amiti's twin sister had grown up with a great deal of each others' company. They are of similar age, had lived in close proximity, and are all daughters of senior officers in the Sesus House Legions stationed in Chanos.

"That would explain it," you say. The carvings set into the walls — flowing up and around the regularly spaced doors — are certainly beautiful and the magical lights hanging overhead are of particularly fascinating design. You're having a hard time paying much attention to the walls with Vahelo walking so deliberately ahead of you, however. "This layout is a little confusing."

"Deliberately," she says, sounding pleased. "It wouldn't be much of a fortress, if it were easily infiltrated. It's just up here." She leads you up a set of narrow steps — the dim opening blends in with the wall so well that you would have missed them entirely without her to point them out. "I have to say, I'm glad to have had the opportunity to rescue you from that party — I got the impression you weren't having a good time. If you will forgive my conjecture."

You laugh. "You're the first one there who actually wanted to talk to me. I half think my brother brought me here just to see how I'd act if he let me twist in the wind."

"Well, you've certainly shown him," Vahelo says. She stops at a door, and smiles almost conspiratorially at you. "I think you make a lot of them nervous. The sorcery, the snake, the general air of danger..."

"So I've been hearing from many people," you say, voice a little dry. "You don't seem nervous, though."

"Well, maybe I like a bit of danger."

The room you're standing in is a deserted meeting room. A large table, painted bright red, dominates the centre of the space, the enchanted lighting fixture overhead slowly rotating like a convection candle. The reason for this is immediately obvious: The entire back wall is taken up by a battle scene cast in light and shadow, a siege being broken by fire from the sky. Tiny, humanoid figures fight and die and burn, banners move in an imagined breeze, and the sky overhead boils with flame and smoke.

"You're sure we can just be in here?" you ask, moving out into the room to get a better look at it.

"Oh, yes, it doesn't get used for much," Vahelo says. You hear her quietly locking the door behind you before she steps into view.

This is surprising to you; it's a true wonder of artistry, even if it is brazenly iconic. A more pious household would have gone to some lengths to avoid exposing mortals to it at all, but that doesn't match House Sesus's reputation, nor Vahelo being so visibly unphased by the terrible beauty of the scene. Then you process the anachronistic mon on the banner of the defenders.

"It was commissioned by House Chanos half a century before their fall," Vahelo says, "Not that House Chanos even existed during that battle, but their ancestors fought in it, so, artistic license." She leans a hand against the table as she looks at you. Alone with you here, something more sensual has entered into her posture.

The piece was obviously too complex and impressive to consider removing it or modifying it, but it nonetheless showed a victory that didn't belong to House Sesus. Given that Sesus's ascension had infamously come as a result of House Chanos's carefully orchestrated downfall, you're not surprised that her heirs have little desire to show it off, although you are a little saddened. "It's beautiful, though," you say, letting Verdigris slide out of your sleeve to coil up on the table.

"Yes, it's extremely impressive," Vahelo agrees, face lit by the shifting light of the shadow mural, "but I hope you didn't really let me steal you away from the party just to admire the artwork." You're not sure when exactly she moved this close to you -- she has to crane her neck a little to look you in the face. She seems to enjoy that, though.

"I might have had other hopes," you admit, letting your eyes drift downward to take her in properly. "I hope it wouldn't offend your house founder, on her memorial day."

It's a joke, and she takes it as one -- just not in the way you expect. "Please, the ceremony is over. And from some of the stories I've heard of Matriarch Sesus, she was no stranger to a good time. But, if you feel differently, I am of course ready to receive instruction from my spiritual better." Vahelo's full lips curve up into a smirk that you desperately want to kiss off of her face. With a small thrill, you realise that there's absolutely nothing stopping you from doing so.

You move fast enough to take her by surprise, and she gasps as you seize her by the hips. By the time her back hits the wall, however, she's caught on -- she flings her arms around your neck, and she pulls herself up to meet you in a fiercely enthusiastic kiss.

You almost entirely manage to lose yourself in it.

---

Erona Maia takes in a deep breath, adopting a ready stance with a knife in her hand.

Tranquil Depths Drown Deceit, Immaculate monk of the Third Coil, stands across the practice ring from her, surveying her critically, hands clasped behind his back. By no means a large man, he still has a significant amount of height on Maia. In the darkness of the scantly lit room, he seems to half blend into the shadows pressing in around them. A deep-sea predator hanging motionless as it sizes up its prey. "I feel I should familiarise you with the fable of the Noble Groom and the Face-Stealer," he says in calm, steady tones.

Maia stands across from him, the live steel of a dagger clutched in one hand, a sheen of nervous sweat on her forehead. "I know it, elder brother," she says.

Depth's eyebrows climb toward his shaved scalp. "Recent events lead me to believe you could use the reminder." His indifferent gaze feels almost physically cold, seeming to conjure a phantom chill from the very bottom of the ocean.

"If you feel my knowledge of spiritual matters is inadequate, then... then I am ready to receive your instruction." Maia tries to keep the misgiving she feels from reaching her voice. It's hard, though: Nearly twenty years' his junior, Maia has no memory of Depths where he wasn't a man grown, Exalted and wrapped in the spiritual authority of the Immaculate Order, stern and quiet in a way that makes her feel inadequate even now. She does her best to go to that cold, hard, unflinching place she finds in training sometimes; that she found when those elementals had been swarming toward Ambraea.

"Begin," says Depth. He doesn't immediately move, instead staying rooted in place. Carefully, she begins to circle around him, knife in hand, scrutinising him for any sign of weakness. An Immaculate monk returning to check on the religious education of a younger sibling, particularly a younger sibling faced with all the myriad temptations of the sorcerous arts, is entirely proper; admirable, even. Maia is sure that his abbot wholeheartedly approved of this trip. The combination of sparring and instruction is also well within normal bounds — physical and spiritual health are deeply intertwined, after all. But Maia knows all too well that, behind closed doors, such things rarely stay within expected bounds, with her family; his insisting she use live steel is evidence enough for that.

"Once, there was a young nobleman," Depth begins. Before he can even reach the end of the phrase, Maia darts forward, slashing at him, testing his defences. Depth seems almost to flow out of the way, hands still clasped behind his back as he avoids her knife effortlessly. "Though his mother received many requests for his hand, all were turned away — her son was beautiful and pleasing of manner, skilled of voice and with the harp, learned of household matters both large and small. But one day, a woman important and wealthy enough to pay his groom price arrived to take him from his mother's home — a queen in her own right."

Maia knows the instant she overextends, letting her frustration at how hard to pin down he is get away from her. She strikes out a hair too aggressively, leaving herself momentarily off balance, and he retaliates almost faster than her eyes can track. A foot sweeps out, throwing her legs out from under her, and she lands hard on her back. She only has the scantest instant to react before the next strike comes, Depth crossing the distance and stomping down at her like a wave crashing into the shore.

Maia kicks herself up, flipping into the air to land on her feet a metre away, breathing hard, staring at Depth's calm face with wide, staring eyes.

He continues: "The groom's wife lived in a fine palace with many servants, a beautiful garden, and all the luxuries that his mother's small house couldn't provide. It all seemed too good to be true — and it was. On their wedding night, she revealed herself to him in all her monstrosity, an Anathema trickster demon."

Then he's behind her, and Maia has to twist out of the way once, twice, three times before he actually lets her retreat again.

"Things seem normal after that night, though. The pleasures of his new wife's home are so great that he can all but put her terrible secret out of his mind. He doesn't flee, or contact his family, or seek help of any kind. Surely, he thinks, after she's gone through all the trouble and expense of taking him as her husband, she'll have no reason to harm him."

This time when he darts around to strike at her back, Maia is ready for him, twisting around to slash up with the knife, her form perfect. Depth twitches his head out of the way, and slams a single claw-strike directly into Maia's chest. The blow sends her sprawling, and foreign Water Essence seems to flood her body.

"There is quite a bit more, of course," Depth says. The slightest trickle of red runs down his cheek where she'd actually managed to nick him. "Atrocities ignored, crimes overlooked. But I'm sure you recall how it ends."

Maia struggles to get up, but her lungs burn, and she can't seem to breathe. She's abruptly, horribly transported back to being six years old and falling into a garden pond, formal clothes dragging her down. She'd been a mortal less than three years ago; it's strange how, in that scant span of time, drowning had become something unimaginably alien.

"You'd be dead, if we were being serious," he tells her, voice conversational. "The Drowning-in-Blood technique can choke you with your own Essence channels as easily as it can with its namesake. But you've done well — I think we're done for the day. How does the story end, sister?"

The burning abates agonisingly slowly, and Maia pushes herself up to her knees with shaking arms. "She... tears out his heart one night," Maia says. Her voice was as rough as if she'd been coughing up seawater. "With his last breath, he... he... 'Why? I've been a good husband.' She tells him: 'Why are you surprised? You knew exactly what I was all along." This last task done, Maia slumps in place, utterly exhausted.

"Correct," Depth says. "Once your enemy has shown you who she is, don't let her make you forget. We'll do this again tomorrow." Then he reaches down, and offers Maia a hand up.

She accepts, wincing in pain as she straightens. All she can think is how much she wishes she were back at the Heptagram: At least one person there isn't an enemy, after all.

---

"You understand the worth of this blade?" Matriarch Tepet Usala holds the daiklave, Storm's Eye, in both hands, showing little visible strain in her casually handling of the unattuned weapon.

"I'm beginning to, mother," says Tepet Usala Sola.

Sola kneels on the damp gravel of the garden courtyard, surrounded by impeccably manicured shrubs and flowers. Ivy with rainwater still dripping off its leaves climbs the garden walls to three sides. The fourth, directly beyond Usala, is the handsomely weathered stone of the house itself: A pleasant villa in the mountains south of Chanos Prefecture. Sola has been here for less than an hour, her mother for less than a day — the schedule of a Great House matriarch is very busy, and Sola is lucky to have only had to go this far out of her way to see her mother in person for the first time in three years.

Usala lifts her gaze from the blade to examine Sola's face with eyes lit blue as if by an inner tempest. The air around her seems to perpetually crackle with restrained power, subtly scented with ozone. To be in her presence is to stand in an open field, awaiting a lightning strike. In a more mundane sense, her features bear little resemblance to Sola's, but her skin is the same dark brown, and where it hasn't begun to grey in the face of a graceful middle age, her hair is the same black. She's also a full half-head shorter than Sola is now, which is a development Sola can't help but find deeply disconcerting.

"If this daiklave had not been lost, it could well now be in the hands of a Sublime Armiger," Usala says.

"It's a sorcerer's weapon, and I believe I've earned it. But, you will of course do with it as you deem wise, Mother." The last, ostensibly added for the sake of politeness, has the unmistakable air of a challenge. Sola meets Usala's gaze directly as she says it, refusing to look away under the intensity of the elder Dragon-Blood's attention.

Usala says nothing for a long, deliberating moment, her face betraying little of what she thinks. "Bold. As befits a woman of my line."

This, of all things, threatens to break Sola's composure. She's forced to swallow down a sudden lump of emotion in her throat.

Fortunately, Usala continues, buying Sola a few more seconds: "Your choice of occupation, I admit, I remain less sanguine about."

"Our house needs sorcerers on the battlefield," Sola says, happy to be on steadier ground.

"Does our house need my daughter to be one of them?" Usala asks.

"One of Tepet's own daughters was a sorcerer," Sola says, refusing to give an inch on this.

"So you said, when you convinced me to allow it." Usala gives a faint sigh. "This is not the life I imagined for you."

Sola takes the tiny change in register as encouragement. "Once upon a time, you imagined I was your son."

"Less than you might think," Usala says, a dry note touching her voice. "And I see you at least haven't been wasting your time on that wretched island." She glances up at the sky, clear and sunny overhead. It had been that way for less than an hour.

"It seemed like a practical place to start," Sola says.

"Practical is a word," Usala says. She approaches Sola, holding out orichalcum and jade daiklave, hilt first.

Sola accepts it, noting that she hasn't actually disagreed. There are countless ways to kill a large number of people with sorcery. Blasting them with fire or flaying them with razor-winged butterflies — Ambraea would be a terror, if properly utilised, with that mass petrification spell she'd picked up. But all the mass death magic in the world doesn't count for a thing if you and your troops are bogged down in mud, two days' slog away from where you need to be.

All around the villa, a torrential rainstorm had been falling for the past day. The calm had arrived with Sola, and was entirely localised to the building and the area around her while she was here. The dark rain clouds were still visible in the sky to every side. The weather working was unmistakably useful, even if the spell she'd used had alarmed her escort.

Sola felt an already familiar surge of power as she took the sword back. Her sword back. "Thank you, mother," she says, inclining her head.

"Make yourself worthy of that blade, Daughter," Usala says, "in every way you can. We will see what you have accomplished with it in five years' time."

Sola feels a flash of intense gratitude. "I intend to exceed your expectations, Mother," she says.

For the first time, Usala smiles at Sola. Barely a twitch of her lip. "See that you do."

---

Diamond-Cut Perfection lays sprawled across their vast stone dais, their glittering, multi-hued coils piled atop one another.

The cavern that contains their small spirit court is much larger than it used to be in practice; in their previous existence as a gemlord, their body was truly massive, extending deep underground in all directions, an unmoving, sapient lode of glowing gemstone. Ahead of their ascension to dragonhood, they had given out careful instruction for the cavern to be reinforced. As such, the cavity that Perfection had once filled in their person was now a cathedral-like space, held up by crystalline braces that prevented the entire thing from caving in and taking one of the islands overhead with it.

"You need a name," they tell the watermason.

The crab looks up at them, her entire body smaller than Perfection's head. "Why?" she asks.

Perfection sighs, a thunderous sound. "Do you want to die, when your summoning period expires?" they ask.

The watermason thinks about this for a long moment, rolling a melon-sized water bubble back and forth across the floor like a ball with two of their claws. "No," they decide. "I want to... see more seasons. Learn more. Change."

"Well, you won't, if you can't pull together a proper sense of self," Perfection says. "It's all that will stop your Essence from returning to the sea that Ambraea pulled it from. I've explained this to you."

"And a name will help?" asks the crab.

Perfection rolls over onto their back, their scales scraping hideously against the stone that makes all the other spirits present wince — even the mercury ants. The giant insects are hard at work on the far side of the cavern, smoothing out floors, and cutting proper rooms into walls. Their nest had been easy enough to recruit after their long binding had ended. Old and entrenched as they were, such a dramatic reminder of what even the least and meekest of the Terrestrial Exalted could do to them if crossed had still been singularly persuasive.

A crystalline maiden plays a harp by an ocean pool nearby enough for the pure notes to drift through the air. The entrance is guarded by the odd pairing of a jokun and a kri — one hulking and ogre-like, the other like an over-sized, three-horned deer, incongruous in this underground space.

"A name helps anchor you to you," Perfection says. "It tells people something about who you are." It tells one's self that as well, in a real sense. That you're an individual, not just the configuration that a bit of elemental Essence is currently in.

"I'll... think of something," the watermason says, dubiously. Then the miserable little idiot goes and has a burst of insight: "Why do you care?"

"Excuse me?"

The crab shuffles around uncomfortably under Perfection's fixed stare. "Why care if I die or not?"

"Your mistress asked me to look after you. I'm doing so," Perfection says. "The advice is little enough effort."

"It's just for her, then?" the crab asks.

"No." Perfection is almost surprised by how automatic the word is, because they immediately know that it's true. "Not just for her." Working out why is the effort of a moment or two:

The gemlord, Diamond-Cut Perfection, had been over two-thousand years old. It had grown beneath this isle, undisturbed since before the Contagion, before even the Dragon-Blooded had cast down their old enemies and taken control of the Blessed Isle and everything that surrounds it. Its thoughts had been cold and slow and deliberate, a creature of infinite patience and precious few emotions. Cruel in the way a rockslide could be cruel — through sheer indifference.

Perfection is the same being that they always were. At the same time, though, they aren't. The draconic shape is mobile, fast when it wants to be, changeable and expressive. Seeing the sky, speaking to humans, swimming through rock and water — all this would have been utterly unthinkable for the gemlord Perfection had been. It left them feeling raw, new, unfinished, emotional, like they had in those far distant days when a single gem had coalesced from ambient Earth Essence, growing glacially out from there.

Maybe this minor water elemental, this dull little crab without even a name, on the verge of either true consciousness or death, is more relatable for Perfection than they'd like to admit.

"Or, maybe I'm just bored and lonely," they decided out loud. Both of these feelings should have been utterly alien to them. This doesn't mean it's not true.

The students will be back soon enough — things might be more interesting again then.

---

"You're lucky we're not playing for money," says Open Hand, grinning, as he traps her tiger. "I win again."

Peony sits in a room in the Palace, cooling her heels and quietly wiling away the hours until it was time for her to leave with Ambraea, along with all the other personal attendants of the various guests at the party. The room is far enough away to be out of sight, but near enough at hand that they can be summoned at need.

The room is designed more or less for this purpose, and so is plain in a way that none of the parts of a manse meant for use by dragon-blooded or their families would be. Several women chat quietly by the unlit hearth. A ways away, a man sits on the end of a bench, reading a book. Near to him, a serious looking game of Deliberative has been underway since before Peony arrived.

She herself has wound up at a smaller table, sitting with two men and a battered old Gateway set. Hunting Cat is simpler than Gateway proper, but more importantly it's playable by three people, and its games are much faster — ideal, considering they can be interrupted at any time.

"I suppose that's why I'm not playing for money," Peony says, already setting the board up for the next game. In truth, Open Hand is not half as good as he thinks he is. But it's been obvious since the first round of play that he's enough of a poor loser that throwing every other game simply makes him better company.

Open Hand laughs, and puts his lion on the top tier of the board. He's in his forties, thick-shouldered, personable and friendly enough, if he decides he likes you.

Beside him, Navis flashes a nervous smile at the joke, and places his own piece down. Closer to Peony's age, Navis speaks with a pronounced Forest-Tongue accent, the brand of his lord's household visible over the top of his collar. He's not very good, but cheerful enough at losing. A man in his position often has to be when trying to blend in with free servants.

A shadow falls over the board, and Peony looks up to see a serving girl standing over them. Rather than being here to collect one of them, however, she grins, and snatches up the bottle beside Open Hand.

"Hey!" Hand protests, but the rice wine is already vanishing down the server's throat.

"It's thirsty work in there while you sit here doing nothing," the girl says, waving him off. "Just ducked in for a second before someone notices I'm gone. You're Lady Ambraea's girl, yes?"

"I am," Peony says. "Does she need me?"

For some reason, the server cackles at that. "Not for a good while, I don't imagine. Ducked out of the party with Lady Vahelo a minute ago — not to play boardgames either, I'd bet."

"... Well, I suppose I will be here for a while longer, then," Peony says, letting the amusement enter her voice. She has a sudden, intense image of Ambraea, age twelve, so enthralled by a beautiful, laughing girl going through the hallways of the Imperial Palace that she'd walked directly into a pillar. It's a memory that's a lot easier to square with the darkly imposing sorcerer she serves now when Ambraea isn't in the room.

"If they know what they're doing," the server agrees, grinning. "Have fun with your game — I've got to get back to it. Thanks for the drink, Hand! I needed that." And with that, she saunters off, presumably to transform herself back into someone far more mutely inoffensive.

Open hand watches her go, muttering something about drinking on the job.

"Weren't you drinking on the job?" Peony asks, eyebrows arched in amusement.

Hand only scoffs. "I'm not working until my employer has need of me." The woman he works for must be quite lax, Peony is forced to note.

Navis sighs, turning a game piece over in his hand. "I wish I could be so lucky in matters of the heart," he admits. Peony notices his eyes dart over to one of the women on the far side of the room. Flowering Saffron is a tall, broad-shouldered young woman, plainly pretty until she smiles, at which point she becomes radiant. Peony talked to her briefly before the ceremony earlier, enough time to exchange introductions, and to learn that she is handmaiden to Sesus Niri, lately of Arjuf.

Unfortunately, Open Hand sees where Navis is looking too. He gives a derisive sort of snort as he stands up from the table. "Navis, no one likes a slave whose eyes wander above his station," he says, voice harsh. Then, as if he'd said nothing at all objectionable, he added. "I have another bottle," he says. "My lady will be at least another few hours, I'll have time to go grab it. Barely got a taste of the last one."

Peony watches him go, biting her tongue before turning back to poor Navis. He's sunk down into his chair, trying not to catch anyone's gaze. "She misses Arjuf," Peony tells him.

Navis blinks up at her. "Sorry?"

"Saffron," Peony says. "Her family, but also the food — lots of southern fare down there, apparently. She was telling me earlier."

"I've never been that good a cook," Navis admits.

"You don't have to be — she mentioned Chiaroscuro pastry; it's hard to find on the Northern Isle, but there's a tea shop I've come across down at the merchant docks, very near to Hesiesh Taming the North. Huge statue, you can't miss it. There's a woman there who makes something very like what Saffron is talking about. I didn't remember until the ceremony had already started, and I forgot to mention it to her." Peony examines his surprised face. "Does your master trust you to run errands?" That was never a guarantee, but it was more likely for a slave serving as a personal attendant, as well dressed and healthy as Navis is.

"Yes, and to handle coin," Navis says. He steals a glance at Flowering Saffron again, clearly torn. "Is Open Hand right, though? I don't want to get us into trouble."

Peony's mind goes back to her mother back in the Imperial Palace, with her quiet dignity and the tinge of Seatongue colouring her speech even after two decades in the Realm. The mon of the Imperial Household branded onto her neck. "These things always come down to knowing the moods of who you serve, darling; like reading the weather on the horizon before you set sail. But lady Ambraea is an agreeable girl — it's how I raised her. And you're a citizen, and you have your rights. Just stay my smart girl, and it will all be fine."

"Very likely, no one who matters would even notice," Peony says. "But you'd know your master best, and Saffron's Lady Niri — it's your decision, and then hers."

Navis gives Peony a nervous smile. "Thank you," he says.

Despite herself, Peony smiles back. "It was quite literally nothing."

---

However the evening started, you would be lying if you said you hadn't had a good time, in the end. However knowing that look in Oban's eye had been when you'd said goodbye to your host. Whatever his exact game is, it was never something you were going to figure out in the space of one afternoon. You can only hope that it's nothing more sinister than taking the opportunity to learn a thing or two about you.

And he had, you suppose.

"I realise I was longer than I said I would be," you tell Peony as you lead the way to the carriage. You'd said you would make as quick an exit as possible; it's not as though you can actually offer an apology to your own servant in public over such a thing, but hopefully she understands the sentiment.

"I'm sure you were pleasantly occupied, my lady," Peony says, her voice exceptionally mild.

Somehow, you can feel her eyes on the back of your head — Vahelo had been kind enough to offer to rebraid your hair, having been the one to make it look considerably less presentable. As you recall her deeply satisfied voice saying "Playing with your hair isn't exactly a chore" into your ear, you feel your face heat. While it looks fine, it's possible that it's braided in a slightly different style than it had been at the start of the evening.

"You could certainly say that," you say.

You enjoyed the experience a great deal, and would certainly repeat it without regrets. But Sesus Vahelo, as nice a surprise as she turned out to be, is not who you've had on your mind all summer, was she?

Article:

The Last Daughter is about young demigods in high pressure environments, finding moments of real companionship and solace in this fleeting part of their lives before the outside world falls to chaos. As such, rash and spontaneous romantic entanglements were always going to be on the table. Who is that Ambraea can't keep her mind from wandering back to in idle moments? You may vote for as many options as you like, but only the one with the most votes will be picked.

[ ] [Goal] A courtship of Dragons

Diamond-Cut Perfection is an arrogant, insufferable spirit helping you for their own gain. How much you keep thinking about them is too confusing to examine.

From an outside perspective, becoming involved with a lesser elemental dragon would be both shocking and scandalous for the empress's daughter.


[ ] [Goal] A heart that hides the deepest dark

The memory of Erona Maia's open, guileless smile after she defended you from a pack of elementals has haunted your dreams for months. Whatever else, you desperately want her to look at you that way again.

Apart from ordinary gossip, Ambraea taking up with an Exalted patrician girl will not be viewed as particularly remarkable. Maia's family isn't powerful enough to cause serious complications in their own right. Maia becoming involved with the Empress's daughter, even as part of a secondary school romance, will be considerably more noteworthy piece of gossip among the Patriciate.


[ ] [Goal] Swords and Heartache

Tepet Usala Sola is brave, loyal, and talented, as you've unavoidably noticed. You miss your sparring sessions with her, and find yourself hoping for more when you meet her again.

Two well-connected young Dynasts forming close connections is normal enough. People would talk, but the entanglement might even be seen as smart on both their parts... so long as Ambraea and Sola can still rely on the backing of Ambraea's mother and Sola's house, respectively, over the years.

---

What storyline would you like to follow in your third year? The characters named as central will appear very prominently within this storyline, but this doesn't mean you won't see other characters as well. You may vote for as many as you like, but only the top vote will be picked. This vote is separate from the first:

[ ] [Storyline] Metal Honing Stone

You have so far not had a great deal of contact with Simendor Deiza, but the cadet house scion has not made a good impression so far. Tensions only increase with further contact, and rivalry cuts both ways. Just what are Deiza's motivations for acting the way she does toward her social betters?

Availability: Year 2, year 3
Central character: Simendor Deiza


[ ] [Storyline] Flame and Frost

Amiti's early friendship with Ledaal Anay Idelle seems to have grown strained this year. Amiti comes to Ambraea and her other friends with a problem that she's trying to conceal. Why is Idelle so suspicious and intent on finding it out?

Availability: Year 3, year 4
Central character(s): Ledaal Anay Idelle, Sesus Amiti

[ ] [Storyline] Names and Nightmares

Certain students begin to get strange, unexplained dreams, and they're not just from stress, for once. What could be causing them, and why?

Availability: Year 3, year 4
Central character(s): ???