Thousand Tongue Mage

Eria wasted no time. She immediately beckoned Zora and Enki out of the reception hall with her hands, practically bouncing towards the hallway at the end.

"Um, are you two hungry? Do you want to get a snack first?"

Zora allowed himself a chuckle as he tilted his head at Enki, beckoning the boy to follow as well. "We ate on the road, little lady. We're filled to the brim."

There was a sag in her shoulders that made even Enki tilt his head a fraction. Zora's hand twitched, halfway to an offer, but before he could indulge the impulse, Eria straightened and bobbed a nod.

"Alright then! I'll take you to our room first! It's late, so sleep is more important, right?"

Her heels had barely turned before the receptionist's voice rolled across the counter, dry as old parchment.

"What are you forgetting, Eria?"

A beat. Two beats. Zora waited, breath paused, for the gears in her head to catch.

"Ah!" Her exclamation was a bell in the hush. The girl practically bounced back to the counter, asking, with a sheepish grin, for their schedules. The receptionist handed over a dense stack of papers and books without complaint, patting Eria's head.

Zora listened to the weight shift. The stack was heavy—likely crammed with academy codes, timetables, and maps—but surprisingly, Eria took it all into her arms without strain, though her steps back to the two of them wobbled precariously.

When she reached them, her grin was lopsided, triumphant.

"These are your class schedules! They have all the lecture halls, times, teachers, everything! Also, look!" She thrust the student notebooks towards them, breathless with excitement. "There's a stopwatch built into the cover! It tells the time! I helped figure out how to fit it in there! Isn't it neat?"

Zora's fingers brushed the cool, embroidered surface of the notebook's edge, feeling the faint tick of a clockwork mechanism embedded into the cover.

"Very neat," he said, smiling. "I'm sure it'll be my most useful teacher yet."

Buoyed by the praise, Eria turned with renewed purpose, "Then let's go! I'll give you a tour of the dorm on the way!"

The receptionist gave a small, knowing bow of farewell as Zora and Enki fell into step behind their tiny guide.

The dormitory, this late into the evening, was still alive with quiet murmurs. Zora listened to the hush and hum of students: footsteps against flagstones, the clatter of utensils in the communal lounges, and the constant creak of furniture being moved upstairs. The building was quite massive. Five floors, not two—unlike Amadeus Academy's dorm—and the long and winding hallways swallowed sounds before spitting them back in faint echoes.

"Up this way!" Eria piped, her voice bouncing from stairwell to archway, and as they ascended through the floors, she did her best to play their tour guide.

Though, her words fumbled over themselves constantly like a toddler learning to walk.

"This is the… uh, training hall for combat!" She said, pointing through one massive door on their left, before pointing down the hall at another set of doors. "Over there's the library! The big one! Uh, but, um… the study lounge's next to that, so you have to be quiet when you're there!"

Zora smiled softly at the honesty of her struggle. She'd memorised the route and everything she wanted to introduce on the way—likely having repeated the information in her head over and over—yet all of it still tangled on her tongue.

Sincerity always was a clumsy thing, and she reminded him of a fair few of his students back in Amadeus Academy.

But what is a young child like her doing in this academy, after all?

Isn't she a bit too young to be wielding a blade?

While he pondered, his ears traced every corner she spoke of. There was the hollow clang of metal against obsidian coming from the training halls, the stifled whispers of students in the library, and even the faint scratch of quills on parchment in the study lounge reached him. The students were disciplined, even at night, but outside—in the courtyard—that gave way to the low, low thrum of idle chatter.

Zora's head tilted slightly as they passed by a few open windows, where groups of students gathered under the dim warmth of lamplight. Laughter, whispers, and the scratch of booted heels kicking at the stone benches. The flow of conversation ebbed and pooled around four singular presences: all female students whose uniforms rustled with heavier fabrics, the sharp clink of ornate accessories trailing their movements. The distinct rustle of feathers swayed as they shifted their weight, conversing with their respective cliques on the comings and goings of the academy.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Those were not ordinary students. He could already tell that much.

"... Those are the Five Princesses of the Academy!" Eria said, reverent and breathless as she caught Zora staring. "They're the best of the best in the academy, ranked one to five! They're the strongest fighters, the smartest strategists, at the top of everything!"

Zora hummed. "But I only hear… I only see four."

"Mhm! The fifth Princess likes to go to bed early, so you won't see her surrounded by students asking for advice this late like the rest of them!"

Zora tucked that information away. In an academy where status was worn like armor, the ones who slipped away from the spectacle were the ones he probably needed to pay the most attention to.

After the awkward grand tour, their descent back to the ground floor was quieter. They passed by the inner courtyard where four of the Five Princesses were still gathered, passed by a small garden, and then Eria halted right before the final set of double doors at the end of a long hallway.

"Here's our room!"

The plaque beside the door was a slab of engraved metal, cool and sharp-edged beneath Zora's fingers as he traced the lettering. He couldn't read it, of course, but he didn't need to. He could already hear the faint heartbeat inside the room, and he recognized it quite well.

"There's always four people inside a dorm room," Eria chirped. "It's… uh, it's usually all boys or all girls, but since we're all cousins of the Salaqa Household here…" Without further ceremony, Eria pushed the doors open with a soft squeak of hinges. Warmth from the corridor spilled into the room as she announced, bright and clear, "The two transfers are here!"

The doors creaked softly as Zora and Enki stepped through. The air inside was heavy with the faint burn of oil from a solitary lantern. Its warmth barely reached the corners of the four-person dormitory with two bunk beds, flanking both the left and right wall, while cold moonlight fell through the single window-slash-balcony in between the two beds. In all honesty, he was a bit disappointed by the room. He thought it'd be a lot more lavish considering the students, but this room wasn't much better than the ones his kids had in Amadeus Academy.

The two study desks next to each of the bunk beds were a lot wider, though. He could fit four times as many books on them as he could with his own table back in the faculty room, and case in point, their fourth and final roommate was making full use of her table.

Quill scratching paper. The slow, deliberate turn of parchment. A cadence of movement marked by the crisp, precise rhythm of a Noble-Blood accustomed to efficiency. The moment Eria's voice rang into the room—clumsy, earnest, and impossible to ignore—the steady flow of scribbles paused.

Zora caught the slight chair scrape, the soft inhale, and the shift of weight as Kita Salaqa turned in her chair.

Her silence was deafening for a beat too long. Suspicion curled around the moment.

Did she already recognise them beneath their masks, or did her own father keep her in the dark about their mission?

… But when she spoke, nevertheless, it was with a noble grace untouched by subterfuge.

"Welcome. I am Kita Salaqa, heiress to the Salaqa Household," she said, standing, trudging over, and offering him and Enki a handshake with a firm smile. "The two of you are… my distant cousins?"

"Alvay Salaqa," Zora replied curtly, shaking her hand before thumbing at Enki, "and this is Eryn Salaqa. He doesn't like to talk much."

From his side, Eria piped up. "Kita is also the First Princess! That means she's the best student in the entire academy!" A small, breathless giggle slipped through her words as she wrapped herself around Kita's arm. Zora could almost hear the fluster in Kita's voice as she shushed Eria, soft and embarrassed.

"Stop it. I'm nothing special." A lie. But a polite one. Zora inclined his head as Kita gestured towards the bunk bed to the left. "You must both be tired from your long journey. Please, make yourselves comfortable. The showers for men are down the hall to your left. We can talk more in the morning while I show you to your classes, which should be the same as mine, given you're both final semester students."

While Kita quickly retreated to her studies and Eria followed her, Zora stepped to the left, deep in thought. He had no doubt this dorm arrangement, too, bore the Salaqa Lord's fingerprints. Perhaps he wanted to ensure Kita stayed within sight of familiar allies. Perhaps he wanted the exact opposite, and Kita already knew who the two of them were despite their dyed hairs and masks muffling their voices.

Though, in the end, Zora supposed his mission had little to do with her. If Kita suspected them already, she didn't make it obvious. As long as she didn't try to interfere, he'd just pretend they didn't know each other.

As he reached the bunk bed on the left, Enki immediately paced forward and declared, "Bottom."

Zora lifted a brow. "Why?"

"Easier to roll out of in the event of a midnight ambush."

"... Sure." He exhaled through his nose. "I'll take the top bunk."

With that, they began unloading their schedules and materials, sliding their papers onto their respective study desks. The room filled with the quiet rustle of their settling in, but beneath that surface noise, another conversation unfurled behind them.

Zora listened.

Eria's voice, softer now, spoke to Kita with a hint of worry. "You should sleep soon. You're still hurt from your, um, 'vacation' to the northwest, right?"

"Just a little more studying," Kita murmured. "Then I'll rest."

The quill resumed its quiet war against paper as Zora leaned back against the frame of his bunk. Even here—even wounded—she pushed forward with that… Salaqa stubbornness.

She was hard-working, if nothing else.

As he turned to talk to Enki, though, he found the boy already tucked in bed. His eyes were closed and his sheets were pulled up to his mask, but Zora knew better. The Worm Mage didn't have to sleep unless there was a need.

Which meant this was all theatrical.

"What are you doing?"

"Sleep early, and we have an excuse to also wake early. We should be up early," Enki said flatly, "to investigate."

Zora clicked his tongue, amused. "I see the boy does know how to plan ahead."

"Of course I do."

"But what about a shower?"

"..."

"Shower first. We are playing at noble students here."