Chapter 4 Reianna - Orientation

Reianna filed into the auditorium with the rest of the first-year students. The dress her neighborhood had scraped and saved up to buy for her might as well have been rags compared to the ones worn by the girls around her. The low-quality material and shoddy stitching made her status loud and clear as if she’d worn a placard announcing that she was a commoner.

She’d left for Dyntril surrounded by people who showered her with cheer and hope. Now at Dyntril, she was surrounded by the exact opposite reactions. Despite the crowd of people, the way they avoided her, it was like there was an invisible barrier around her, making her feel completely alone.

As she sat down in the middle of the third row, that barrier continued; the boy she sat next to and the girl who’d sat down on her opposite side bent away from her as if the air around Reianna was contagious. She put her arms on the armrests. Well, at least I don’t have to share.

The children around her babbled about things Reianna had no concept of. They talked about mutual acquaintances or pre-academy training—neither of which Reianna had.

She’d been born into a fallen barony. With no noble to claim their benefits for them, the barony wasted away year after year, forcing the denizens to endure a decade of harsher and harsher conditions. Acquaintances? Training ? She had none of that. As this year’s offering, the only thing she had was the collective hope of her community that finally someone might graduate.

Reianna hated it all. She hated the looks of desperation and the burdens piled upon her shoulders. She equally hated the looks of derision and expectations of failure tossed at her feet, like the look the boy she sat next to gave her. It’s not that she wanted to sit next to him, either.

“Watch out, Merk! You might get commoner on you!”

Reianna tried to let the comment slide off her, but it felt like a knife in her heart. She just wanted to curl up somewhere and read her book.

“All rise!” a voice barked from the podium area.

The boy and girl next to Reianna stood the instant the word was said. Reianna rose less than half a second behind them, but the difference was notable enough for the two of them to give her side-glares.

“Headmaster Yasher.”

A man stepped onto the stage. His aura overwhelmed Reianna. Because of the situation in her barony, she’d only seen a true noble once, and even now, surrounded by the offspring of nobility, they weren’t even an imitation of the presence Headmaster Yasher exuded.

His beard was meticulously groomed, and his silver, wavy, cropped hair created a regal aura. His movements were crisp and precise as if he was calculating how the lit of his head would affect how the hairs laid on his head. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes, belying his age, only seemed to enhance his authority, giving his aura an edge of learned-wisdom.

Headmaster Yasher raised his hand. “Be seated.”

Trying her best, Reianna sank in time with the two beside her. She felt it in her core that the glorious-looking man before them would notice and remember any delay in obedience.

“Look to your left.”

Reianna stared at the girl next to her. She felt Merk’s eyes on her.

“Look to your right.”

She looked at Merk. His aquamarine hair shone in the light.

“Only one of you will live to graduate.”

Reianna’s breath caught. The golden aura of the headmaster melted away, revealing a black void. Instead of radiating light, it sucked in the light of the room and even the edges of Reianna’s vision dimmed. How had she read him so wrong?

The sinking feeling in her stomach spread, chilling her to the core. Reianna, Merk, and the girl—if only one of them would survive, in what world would it be Reianna? The other two probably already considered her death a foregone conclusion. As the headmaster spoke, his words grew distant, as if they weren’t meant for her, but for the others.

When he said their blood would protect the city, Reianna wondered if she’d even survive that long. She clenched her fists. She had to survive; her parents, the old woman, the people of her barony—all of them were counting on her.

Merk yawned.

“Most of you came to these halls as the sons and daughters of barons and baronets, counts and earls, even dukes and margraves. You’ve lived a lavish life of luxury until now: countless servants, mansions, delicacies, and the highest quality of whatever your imagination could dream.

“You were afforded that luxury because it was your parents, grandparents, and ancestors who laid and continue to lay down their lives to protect the great nation of Kruami. And now, you too will fulfill the noble roles to which you were born.”

Reianna was none of those things. Her father ran a bakery that made rock-hard bread with the old flour that her mother somehow managed to get from the neighboring county. Reianna had been helping her father since she learned to walk. Her one item of “luxury” was the worn book her mother had brought back once from her procurement business.

“I welcome you, children, as boys and girls to Dyntril Academy. To those of you who survive, I will see you off as men and women, protectors of the realm.”

Headmaster Yasher bowed and took a step back from the podium. The man who’d announced his entrance once again called out, “All rise!”

Reianna did her best to match the speed at which the two next to her obeyed the command, but once again, she failed. Her movements were too slow, too out of sync with the others, like she was already falling behind and on her way to…she didn’t even want to complete that thought.

Headmaster Yasher left, but the light in the room did not return, despite the bright sunlight shining in through the windows and its best efforts to illuminate the world. Reianna wanted nothing more than to latibulate with her book—go to her room, crawl into a corner, and reread the book for the umpteenth time, where she could disappear from the world and find solace.

The students filed out of the auditorium. As soon as she got out into a wide enough space for others to pass her, Reianna slunk her way over to the far edge of the hallway and shuffled her way into the Grand Entrance Hall.

Other kids started clumping together. Some seemed to know each other, others seemed to be meeting for the first time. Reianna neither knew anyone else nor did she have the desire to meet them.

Where was her bag? Where was her book?

“Excuse me, young miss.”

Reianna looked at her shoes as she tried to hide unnoticed behind a pillar. She hoped she’d gotten far enough out of the way of the person who’d called out to her. Considering that her father’s bakery could easily be nestled into the entrance hall between two of the pillars, she didn‘t understand how she could be in someone’s way.

“Young miss, you are a student in Class E, correct?”

Reianna looked at the woman dressed in a servant’s dress with her vivid violet hair pulled up into a tight bun. Her dress was nicer than Reianna’s. “Yes, Ma’am.”

“You do not need to be polite with me, miss. No matter what your status used to be, you are now my superior.”

Reianna used the excuse of nodding to look at the ground.

“If you would like to come with me, young miss, I can take you to your room.”

“I want my bag. Where can I find my bag?”

“Please look at me, young miss.”

Reianna looked up at the woman. Her demeanor was similar to Reianna’s mother's, but the maid’s skin was smooth and youthful, something only children had in Reianna’s neighborhood. The maid glowed warmth, but Reianna was wary of it. She’d already been wrong once.

“Thank you, young miss. My name is Sophia. I will escort you to your room. Your luggage has already been placed there.”

Her luggage. In other words, her bag. Other than the dress she wore, Reianna had brought her two normal day-wear outfits, her one pair of pajamas, and her book. She wondered if there was anyone else who’d come with as little as she had. She doubted it. When she came, she’d been the only one to walk down the long path from the school’s main gate to the main entrance. Child after child had passed her in fancy-looking carriages weighed down with large trunks filled with more luxury than Reianna could begin to imagine.

“Please, Madam Sophia.” That was the one bit of advice her haggard mother had given her. Always call women Madam and men Master .

“As I said, young miss, I am below your station. Sophia is just fine.”

Reianna nodded.

“This way, young miss.”

The maid walked off with a grace that had the look of a lifetime’s worth of practice. The warmth that Sophia radiated pulled Reianna along.

“Young miss, please walk to my right and a step and a half closer.”

Reianna did as asked. She wondered why, but didn’t vocalize it.

“I am guiding you, so there is no choice but for me to walk in the front; however, you cannot appear as my subordinate. If you do not maintain your current relation to me as we walk, not only will the others look down on you further, but you will be endangering me as well.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You do not need to apologize to me, young miss.”

“My name is Reianna.”

“It is my pleasure to meet you, Young Miss Reianna.”

“I kinda told you so you’d stop calling me ‘young miss’.”

Sophia didn’t respond. She walked along in silence. A gnawing in Reianna’s stomach told her she’d offended her kind guide with her remark, and she dropped her shoulders as they walked.

They arrived in front of a door that said 307 on it.

“Did you receive your room key?”

Reianna shook her head.

The maid pulled a key ring out of her pocket and flicked through the keys until she got to one in particular. Sophia put the key into the door’s lock and opened it. She gestured for Reainna to enter, and the young girl did as instructed.

The room was massive. Just as her father’s bakery would have fit nestled into the grand entrance hall, Reianna’s entire house would have fit into this room. A large sofa and chairs surrounded a small table in the middle of the room. A large green rug was spread out beneath them. Reianna stopped where she was. She couldn’t even begin to guess how much these things cost, and she was afraid to touch them.

“It’s okay, Reianna,” Sophia’s gentle voice whispered in her ear. “It’s okay.”

Reianna couldn’t stop from trembling. Everything was too much, too different, too alien—the proclamation of death, the overwhelming affluence that mocked the suffering of her hometown, her brain refused to process it all. Though Sophia probably meant those words to be kind and reassuring, they were the last straw that broke Reianna’s defenses. She felt so alone, and she needed the warmth that Sophia emitted. Spinning around, Reianna wrapped her arms around the maid’s waist. She refused to cry, but a tear rolled down her cheek, betraying her desires.

“You’ll be fine,” Sophia whispered in her melodic voice. It soothed Reianna. The maid’s hands gently rubbed Reianna’s back. “Master Gerenet will take care of you. Please trust him.” Sophia put her hands on Reianna’s shoulders and began to push away.

Reianna strengthened her grip. “Don’t go.”

Sophia squeezed the girl in her arms. “You’ll be safe here. This is your room. Everything in here is for you . Do not be afraid to use it. Do not be afraid here.”

Reianna nodded into the maid’s abdomen. She loosened her grip slightly.

Once again, Sophia rubbed Reianna’s back, then patted it twice. “I have to go. I need to find your other classmates and make sure that they are alright as well. I unpacked your items in the room on the left. I’ll be back later. You are free to explore, but I highly advise that you wait here until you meet your roommate.”

The maid pulled herself away and gave a bow, then left not through the door they’d entered, but a door that was built to blend in with the wall. Reianna hadn’t noticed it. When Sophia left, she seemed to pull all the warmth out of the room with her. Reianna shivered and rubbed her arms despite the hot summer weather.

The first thing she did was to wander over to one of the chairs and rub her hand along it. At home, they had stools where they sat to eat at the table. The old woman who lived next to them, and had taught Reianna what her book said, had a chair with a back, but it, like her family’s stools, was wooden, not upholstered with cushions.

Dashing over to the door on the left, Reianna opened it up to her bedroom. Just the fact that she had enough room to dash in was something that Reianna marveled at as she ran.

If she’d been blown away by the whatever-room that she’d thought was the biggest room she’d ever seen, she might as well have been left for dead at what Sophia said was her bedroom. How was this not a room for two families?

A bed large enough to sleep her and her parents sat pressed against the middle of the far wall. To the left was a large wooden desk that shone in the light from the window in front of it and from the glass doors that led out to a balcony. Reianna had never seen anything made of wood that shined .

A familiar object sat on the desk, and the worn and torn state of her greatest treasure clashed with the pristine room. Reianna walked over to the desk, picked up the ratty book, and held it in her arms.

She looked out the glass doors next to the desk. Opening the doors, she stepped out onto the small balcony. The strong rays of sunlight beat down on her, and she looked out at the campus grounds. Even though Dyntril was in the middle of the city, the campus was larger than the barony that Reianna had grown up in.

After going back inside, she closed the doors and wandered over to the dresser drawers and wardrobe that were on the wall to the right of her bed. Not expecting them to be filled with anything, Reianna opened one up and was shocked to find it full of bleached-white underwear. She closed it.

Had Sophia told her the wrong room? She didn’t own white underwear. She didn’t own anything white. Not wanting to disturb whoever’s belongings were in the drawers, Reianna opened up the wardrobe. Mixed in with hanging school uniforms were her two shabby-looking dresses.

Reianna ran her hands over one of the uniforms. She’d never felt anything so soft in her entire life. Was this really clothing meant for daily wear? It wasn’t something for a special occasion?

Closing the wardrobe, she went back to the drawers and opened them until she found her untreated-cotton underwear. Either they’d mixed her clothes in with someone else’s, or these were all her things. She needed to ask Sophia.

Finished in her room, she headed out into what she decided to call the sitting room. Choosing the chair in front of her room, she sat down. The chair was more comfortable than her bed at home. For several seconds, Reianna just sat in the chair and enjoyed the comfort.

At last, she pulled out her book and began “reading” it. She couldn’t actually read, she just remembered what every single page said from when the old woman had read it to her.

Opening it to a random page, in Reianna’s mind, the old woman’s shaky voice read out the words to her. According to the old woman, it was a poignant scene. The main character comes home to find his daughter missing and a ransom note left in her place. Reianna didn’t understand why it was supposed to be moving. Children vanished all the time. Their parents went on with their lives. Just because a child disappeared, it didn’t mean they could stop working to provide for the others.

Even though Reianna didn’t understand the book, she enjoyed it. It was about a strange world that she could barely comprehend. In her book, the main character had just prepared to go hunt his daughter’s kidnapper when an angel walked into Reianna’s sitting room.

“Angel” was the only word Reianna could think of to describe the blonde-haired beauty who came in. Behind her was a man with jet-black hair, who was almost as attractive as he was exotic.

From just the one day of interacting with the sons and daughters of nobility, it was obvious that neither of the two was from the upper class, which meant they were closer to Reianna’s level. For some reason, that made their beauty even more daunting to Reianna.

“Hello,” the angel sang.

All Reianna could manage to do was nod.

“I’m Fawna Arstep.”

Arstep. She had a last name. Like Reianna, the angel was a commoner, not even from the servant class. How could someone be the same class as me yet be so completely different? Fawna even outshone the nobles that Reianna had so nervously navigated around all morning.

“Reianna Santi.” Inwardly, Reianna flinched at the coldness of her tone, but it was the only defense she could manage to keep herself from being absorbed by the angel.

“Nice to meet you.”

Her throat was dry. She wanted to say it back, to yell that just seeing someone like Fawna was something she’d retell to her parents for years. But by the time her voice actually left her throat, all that she vocalized was, “Door on the left is mine.”

“Oh,” Fawna said. Reianna’s heart dropped just as much as the angel’s tone had.

Fawna went into her room, and Reianna turned her attention to the man who had accompanied her angelic roommate. His skin was so clean and flawless that Reianna couldn’t comprehend it. His long, exotic black hair hung down to his waist and looked just as silky and smooth as the skin on his face. She’d also never seen clothes like his before. They looked more like a robe than actual clothes, but managed to seem more dignified than the most frilled-out suits the noble boys were wearing.

He stared at her with an intensity that made her nervous, like he could see the poorness that seeped out of her soul. Her defense mechanisms spiked, and she glared at him. “Are you going to stare at me forever?”

Before he could respond, the angel shot out of her room. “Oh my goodness, Reianna! Thank you so much for having your servants bring my things up here! But how did they know what was mine?”

Her defenses still spiked, Reianna slammed her book closed and said something she knew she’d regret for the rest of her life. “Why the Yani would I have servants for, rich girl?”

Wanting to die of shame, she ran back into her room and slammed the door closed. She slid down against it and covered her face. What’s wrong with me?