The Sixth School Boo Ii

Author's note.

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All Characters in the story are 18 years of age and above...

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Calyn sat calmly in the meditation room of the airship as she cycled her mana through her channels as prescribed by her family's ascension technique. It had taken almost ten cycles of service and hundreds of missions before she'd earned enough merit in the family to obtain the second layer of this ascension manual. It would take several cycles of study before she could confidently say that she understood the complexities of this second layer. Having already used the first layer in her ascension to the second tier, however, she wasn't exactly going in blind. With patient diligence, she estimated it would take her at most, thirty cycles to climb to the third tier. Nothing would make her happier than to be able to spend every single second of that time focusing entirely on nurturing her power. A sigh left her, however, as she opened her eyes. She had been ignoring Deriel for long enough.

Calyn wasn't naïve. She'd always known that her first union would be arranged by the family as a strategic benefit to them. It was the fate of many scions of the large clans, both male and female. So long as the clan could somehow use them to create a union that would strengthen itself as a whole, then it wasn't even a question whether the clan would go for it or not. That she'd somehow managed to catch the eye of the son of the Governor of the city of Ethavel enough for him to personally ask for her hand in marriage, was to her credit as far as the clan was concerned.

Far from being annoyed by this, Calyn had leveraged this to her advantage. Creating this link to the Governor of Ethavel for the clan was great merit as far as she was concerned and she had argued as much. She had argued that for this, she should be allowed access to all six levels of the clan's ascension manual. The elders of the clan, however, were only willing to agree to this if the marriage lasted five hundred cycles. Something she wasn't willing to abide by. While she was willing to be used by the clan in the short term to gain benefits, she wasn't willing to throw her entire life away at their whims. She had long-term plans of her own that she wasn't willing to forego for them.

She therefore countered with an offer of access only up to the fifth layer in exchange for a hundred cycles of marriage. The stubborn goats, however, wouldn't take anything below three hundred cycles. In the end, unwilling to go beyond a hundred cycles, they settled on the agreement that she would get access to the layer appropriate to the tier she climbed to in that one hundred cycles along with material support from the clan. In theory, she could get all six layers if she managed to climb all the way to the sixth tier in the next one hundred cycles. To climb from the second tier to the sixth in just a hundred cycles, however, was nothing but fantasy. If she could get to the fourth tier in that hundred-cycle window, Calyn would be content.

Of course, all of this was internal clan negotiation. When Deriel arrived at the clan to ask for her hand, you'd have thought that he'd asked them to carve out their hearts and give them to him, the way the old goats were acting. Negotiations had lasted for a whole three months. Three months in which several benefits were negotiated for Calyn before he was allowed to take her hand in marriage. Some of the things negotiated were critical, others trivial all weaved together in a random order so as to confuse their visitors as to what really mattered and what didn't. For example, they spent a whole three weeks negotiating how long Deriel would be expected to be monogamous before he was allowed to take a second wife. At the start, the elders had acted like even the suggestion that the young man would look at other women was a grave insult to them, and had even threatened to chase Deriel away. By the third week, however, they were arguing about how many women he could have after their seventieth cycle of marriage. It was twenty more cycles of monogamy than was usual, the elders wouldn't go below this.

At the same time, however, they only took two days to arrive at the decision that Calyn would be supplied with all the ascension resources she'd need, within reason, of course. Their attitude that this was something that didn't need to be said made this part of the negotiation move quickly. Despite the stark difference between the time allocated to these two issues, however, Calyn cared more about the latter than the former. She couldn't have cared less if Deriel chose to see other women on the side. So long as she was provided with all the resources to continue rising in power, then Deriel would just be a footnote in her past if he failed to keep pace. Just because she thought like this, however, didn't mean that she didn't understand why her elders had put up such a fight on this. Anything cheaply obtained is often cheaply valued. The harder the young man had to fight to get her, the more weight her position as a wife would hold. So she'd said nothing and let the negotiations go on.

After three months of negotiations, it was now Calyn's turn. She would similarly have to go live with her husband-to-be for three months while they evaluated her to see if she would make a good wife to Deriel or not. Naturally, she had several servants, advisors, guards, and a chaperone to ensure that nothing untoward happened between the two of them before the marriage was formalized. She would have to play the role of Deriel's wife in everything other than physical relations. If Deriel's family found her to be satisfactory in the role, then a ceremony would be held and the two would be married.

In truth, Calyn didn't find the idea of being married to Deriel that objectionable. A gifted second-tier illusionist from the school of mind, already closing in on the third tier despite being less than ten cycles older than her. Physically, he was above average in looks with an angular face and well-defined body that he'd honed for battle through unforgiving training. Calyn had seen him spar with a few of her clan mates a few times. Not only was he good physically, but he had weaved his use of illusions into his fighting style. And the switch was so seamless that one second, his opponents would be fighting him, and in the next, they'd be attacking the air just beside Deriel, having completely lost track of him. The most unsettling part was that this wasn't some hidden card of his. He didn't rely on the element of surprise or ignorance on the part of his opponent to do this. Even people who had been standing beside the ring when he used an illusion against others, were themselves wrapped in a web of illusions when they stepped into the ring with him. The most embarrassing moment had been when one of her cousins had laughed, presumably at Deriel, loudly declaring that his illusions wouldn't work on her. All the while, in reality, Deriel was standing to one side of the sparring ring while her cousin was valiantly fighting the air before her.

Her only complaint, and the main reason she had steered clear of the young man for most of this trip, was his tendency to brag. Being a descendant of a major clan like the Sydrak clan, Calyn was self-aware enough to know that she was by no means a humble person. However, with every third statement out of Deriel's mouth being a brag, Calyn had found herself quickly tiring of his presence. The worst part was that he wasn't even bragging about personal achievements. Ninety percent of the things he bragged about were either about his father's position and authority or things he had managed to get because of his relationship with his father.

If, by some twist of fate, he'd been born to a different family, then most of the things he bragged about would have nothing to do with him. As someone who was obsessed with her own personal power, Calyn just couldn't understand how Deriel didn't see this simple truth. Powerful as his father may be, when all was said and done, it had nothing to do with him. If he didn't work hard to become as powerful as the man, then it wouldn't mean anything. He'd just be another name forgotten to history like the majority of the people with powerful relatives.

A sigh left Calyn as she forced her mind to abandon her musings and focus on the present. Rising to her feet, she exited the meditation room attached to her sleeping chambers. Just a moment after stepping through the door, Astra, her head maid had already stepped up beside her. The clan had provided Calyn with several servants for this journey and if all went well, for the hundred cycles she would be married to Deriel. However, they couldn't follow her everywhere like ducklings after their mother, it'd just be awkward and stifling. Which is where a head maid came in. All Calyn had to do was communicate her desires to her and Astra would coordinate the other maids to get it done.

"Run a scented bath for me and have some clothes prepared. I'll be spending some time with Deriel," she instructed even as she pulled off the robes she'd been meditating in. There wasn't one of her servants that hadn't seen her naked several times before, so there wasn't even a hint of shame in her as her lithe naked form was exposed to all. Her instructions were simple but it set off a whole cascade of events. In short order, a bath was drawn in an adjacent room. Inside there would be servants that would help clean her, and others with brushes ready to attend to her hair. Being a luxury vessel, the airship provided a range is scents for the bath. Calyn, however, wouldn't be caught dead in any. One of the servants in charge of the supplies produced a whole array of vials filled with scents for Calyn to choose from, each far more expensive than anything on the ship. There were servants already going through her wardrobe. When she came out, there'd be three outfits laid out for her to choose from for the day. There were already other servants that would contact Deriel's servants letting them know that she wished to spend the rest of the day with him. In short, the simple statement was enough to shape the rest of the day in accordance with her will.

The dress she had on as she stepped onto the deck was a bit more constricting than the fighter in her liked. She, however, knew that there were arenas in which looks were just as deadly as fists, so she didn't mind too much. Off to one side of the deck, several guards were already standing around the table at which Deriel was seated. The airship was full of the upper crust of society. That, however, didn't mean that they all occupied the same station, and Deriel seemed keen to ensure they all knew. With a smile on her face, Calyn approached. She too had her own entourage with her. Just behind her were her head maid, Astra, and two maids behind her. In a triangle formation around them were three tier-three guards. One walked ahead of her and two were just two paces behind on either side of her and the maids. In case of any danger, they were expected to fight to their very last breath to protect her.

The smile that had been playing on her face stiffened a bit when she noticed who else was at the table with Deriel. Her father, Sydrak Heran, wasn't head of the clan. That role went to her father's brother, Sydrak Hadriel. Current clan head and father to the other woman her age who was currently seated at the table laughing with Deriel. It was harder to find a bigger contrast between two people than between herself and her cousin Nerissa. While she was focused to an almost obsessive degree on rising through the tiers, Nerissa was a political animal through and through. Calyn didn't exactly dislike her cousin. Rather, their very different natures had made it impossible to connect on more than a superficial level.

When Nerissa started speaking of all the things going on in the clan, their political implications, and what it would mean going forward, Calyn would very quickly go glassy-eyed, not even remotely interested. When the topic turned to combat, meditation techniques, and ascension through the tiers the roles would reverse. She would become animated and her cousin would lose interest even faster than Calyn did in politics. This isn't to say that Nerissa was stupid enough to neglect her ascension. She worked at ascension just as hard as anyone else, and with how gifted she was, Nerissa was more powerful than Calyn. But far from being a passion, her efforts were born out of the simple understanding that weakness was death. Intra-clan politics could be just as vicious and deadly as politics between clans. If she chose to remain weak, then as sure as the sun would rise, the woman wouldn't live long.

But while the two of them weren't very compatible, the same couldn't be said of her cousin and Deriel. Political creatures right to the core the two of them. They could talk for hours about what to Calyn sounded like vague hints, insinuations, and nonsensical doublespeak. Looking at their expressions, however, one would think that they were having the most riveting conversations of their life. It was to the point that Calyn was left wondering why Deriel had asked for her hand and not that of Nerissa. Though she'd never voiced it, Calyn knew that the same question had to be going through her cousin's mind.

Knowing the kind of person Nerissa was, she was probably thinking of the political implications of this union. One thing clans quickly learned was that if they wished to survive, only the best could lead. One bad seed was all that was needed for clans with a hereditary system to be severely weakened if not completely eliminated. As such, it wasn't just the child of the clan head that was eligible to become the next clan head in most clans. To inherit the position, one had to have two things, one was personal power, and the other was both internal and external support. The clan did not need a leader who was personally powerful but couldn't unite the clan. A clan head who didn't know how to make friends with the other powerful clans was equally a danger to the clan.

Being the daughter of the clan head's brother already gave her quite a leg up in terms of internal politics. Many of those his father had managed to rope into his corner would support Calyn just by virtue of that relationship. As far as personal power went, it was Calyn, not Nerissa who was the ascension-obsessed one. Nerissa might be the one more powerful currently, but Calyn wasn't that far behind. Even a small slip by her cousin and Calyn would probably catch up if not pass her by. That is why marrying into the family of the Governor of Ethavel was such a big deal. It would give Calyn a lot of political pull within the clan for the next hundred cycles. Political pull that, if she wanted to, she could use to give herself a powerful advantage in the race for the position of clan head. Nerissa knew this, which was probably why she had volunteered to come with Calyn as one of her advisors. Calyn wasn't even remotely deluded that advising her was what Nerissa was after.

In truth, Calyn wasn't all that interested in being Clan head. She, however, didn't make this little detail known, mainly for two reasons. The first and simplest is that it would be a pointless waste of energy. Clan politics was a game of intrigue where truth and lies were so tightly interweaved that you couldn't pull on one without tugging at the other. No one worthy of the position would take her word for it unless she either signed a powerful mana contract on it or swore on an oath-keeper stone with her life as the stake. Otherwise, even if she truly had no interest now, nothing was keeping her from changing her mind fifty cycles in the future.

The second reason was because while she wasn't as into politics as her cousin, she also wasn't completely naïve either. If people thought that there was a chance that she could become the next clan head, it would give her much more negotiating power within the clan. In a bid to earn her favor, people would be more willing to accommodate and ultimately indulge her requests. The ambiguity allowed her to gain support that she otherwise wouldn't have if she had come out and directly declared that she wasn't interested in becoming clan head. At the same time, however, that ambiguity forced her to keep false allies like Nerissa close to her.

Calyn regained her smile and didn't allow it to falter even as she wondered how long it would take before Nerissa managed to seduce Deriel. That is if it hadn't happened already. This was partly why Calyn had found the monogamy negotiations so pointless. Someone with Deriel's ego had zero chance of being faithful. Forget the seventy cycles that had been negotiated, Calyn's respect for the man would go up if he managed to go ten years without finding a woman on the side. If this had been a marriage born of love, it would have bothered Calyn. But while she didn't know his motivations for asking for her hand in marriage, Calyn doubted that someone who loved himself as much as Deriel did had room left in his heart to love any other.

"Calyn," Deriel called out, rising to his feet when she approached the table where they were seated. The guards that had been standing around the table parted to allow her through. Her maids moved off to the side where other servants stood while her guards joined the ones that had already been there to protect them from all directions. "Your beauty reminds me of the fire rose, delicate but fiery. My father has an orchard full of them on the north side of the city, we should go visit them sometime," the man said while beaming at her.

Calyn had to do her best to keep from rolling her eyes. Even in his opening compliment, Deriel had somehow managed to insert a brag about what his father had. "That sounds delightful Deriel," Calyn answered even as she settled into the chair that Deriel had pulled out for her. "Forgive me for not spending more time with you, I recently ascended to the second tier and needed to shore up my foundations," she lied. It was a white lie, but much better than saying that she preferred to meditate than spend time listening to him brag about his father. Or worse yet, listen to the two before him speak on politics.

"Nonsense. You have no need to apologize. Believe me, at the rate that my father has been ascending through the tiers, I completely understand the importance of a good ascension foundation," came the reply from Deriel

"Cousin, it's nice to see you," Calyn finally acknowledged the woman sitting across from her with a smile.

"And you likewise," Nerissa answered with a smile that never reached her eyes. Even worse than being cold, her eyes were just calm and calculating. As she had noted before, there was no enmity or great hatred between the two of them. They were just two people who'd been placed in a ring where only one could emerge the victor.

"Tell me, you are preparing to ascend to the third tier, are you not?" Calyn said, masterfully allowing Deriel to indulge in his second favorite pastime outside of bragging about his father, bragging about himself. The one redeeming quality about Deriel was the fact that he seemed to be just as interested in the topic of ascension as he was in politics. And with him being ahead in his progression up the tiers, he had bits of knowledge and insight that Calyn was yet to gain. Of course, not to be outdone, Nerissa would often take the topic of discussion over to the political side before Calyn found a way to get it back to ascension.