“You okay Emily? You’ve been kind of out of it since I came to get you earlier?” Juliana asks with a look of while eating a spoonful of her oats.

  Emily looks up from the toast she is half-heartedly pulling apart.

  What do I even say? ‘Sorry, just a little fused because I didn’t even know today was my birthday but the mysterious voices in my head told me when I checked this m.’ Oh, or maybe ‘Sorry, just feeling a bit depressed that it’s my birthday and half my family is dead, and I ’t tact the other half for fear of them being killed too!’

  Sighing, she reaches up to wipe the tears that threaten to spill from her eyes.

  “Sorry, it’s my birthday today and I’m feeling a little depressed that I ’t see my family.”

  “Oh.” Juliana seems at a loss for words, choosing to silently take Emily’s hand uhe table and give it a supportive squeeze; a gesture Emily appreciates as she ighe unfortable feeling of Tom aer giving her looks of pity.

  They all eat the rest of their breakfast in silence, only speaking again as they prepare to leave.

  “What lessons do you have today?” Juliana asks while releasing Emily’s hand and standing up.

  “I have geopolitiow and hand-to-hand bat after lunch. I ’t wait to beat someone up,” Emily responds with a smirk, trying to lighten the mood she killed.

  “Geopolitics actually isn’t that bad, maybe listen for the first ten mi least before you knock the teacher out?” Juliana responds in kind, getting a chuckle out of Emily.

  “Sure, I’ll sider it.”

  Juliana hugs all three of them, giving Emily a few seds of extra attention, before waving goodbye and stepping into a transportation room.

  “Right, let’s go too,” Emily says to the twins, heading towards her first lesson of the day.

  ***

  Once again, the only ones in the are Emily, the twins and Nico. The teacher who shows up is a small man with greasy bck hair and crooked gsses.

  “Hello css, my name is Theodore Eleocharis, sed circle mage, and I’m here to teach you all the fasating subject of geopolitics,” he says while turning to the board and raising his chalk. “As I’m sure you all know, our wonderful p of Ulea is a sphere. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a fool and should resider their education carefully.”

  “Ha, I like him.” Emily hears Tom mutter under his breath, making her chuckle.

  “We estimate our po have a radius of about five thousand kilometres and a surface area of about three hundred and fourteen million kilometres, an easy ao reach if you know simple maths. This area is covered by roughly sixty per t nd mass, split betweehree major tis.”

  As he speaks, Mr Eleocharis draws fe blobs on the board. In the tre is a rge, top-heavy mass. To the right is a ky mass in lih the top half of the first, and below it is a small stretched-out mass with a disected blob below it.

  “The first is the Keban ti.” He points to the rge mass in the tre. “This ti is where we live, and it makes up arouy-three per t of the world's nd mass. is the Dennari ti.” He points towards the sed rgest mass. “This ti makes up around twenty-one per t of the world’s nd mass. And that leaves the Lerus Isles down here, with only six per t of the world’s nd mass.” He points to the two small masses itht of his diagram before turning back to face the css.

  “Now, what any of you tell me about these tis?”

  There is ion from the students, and after a couple of seds, Mr Eleocharis sighs and opens his mouth to speak again. But before he say anything, Nico tentatively raises his hand.

  “Yes?” Mr Eleocharis asks sharply.

  Nico flinches and lowers his hand before saying quietly:

  “Um, most of our p has a dry climate.”

  “Good! Anything else?” Mr Eleocharis asks in a gentler manner.

  “There is only one rai on our phe Gde, it’s on the Keban tio the south of i. Also, there are three main forests, one in the far southwest of Keban, one directly west of i, and the st one is in the northeast of Dennari,” Nico tinues, slowly rexing more as he speaks.

  “Very good, Mister?”

  “Nico Robinson, first circle mage of house Hedera sir.”

  Emily frowns as he answers.

  They were on Jenny’s list; I’ll have to avoid him.

  “Five points to Nico Robinson, anyone else tell me anything?” Mr Eleocharis rewards Nico with his points at the podium while looking over to Emily’s group.

  Emily siders for a moment before raising her hand.

  “Go ahead, and introduce yourself first please, you should all get into the habit of introdug yourselves the first time you answer a question in a css with a eacher.”

  Why weren’t we told that iiquette? Never mind, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr Stick-Up-His-Ass assumed we were all stupid oners who would never give useful input.

  “Emily Coldstone, first circle mage of house Mandrago. There is a volic region in the south of the Lerus Isles and a rge desert to the north of us on Keban.”

  “Good, there certainly is.”

  Mr Eleocharis turns back to the board and begins adding to his diagram.

  “This entire isnd here is a volic region which spreads to the seabed around it.” He draws a small cracked open mountain in the tre of the disected isnd. “Five my poor drawing, this is geopolitiot art.”

  “Then as provided by Nico, we have a rai here.” He ses off a small segment in the southeast of Keban toug the coast, drawing a water droplet in the tre. “And forests in these pces.”

  He ses off the southwest quarter of the Keban coast, a bubble just below the tre of the ti, and the northeast quarter of Dennari’s coast. Drawing a small tree in each of them.

  “Now as for deserts, Emily told us about the rge desert in the north of Keban.” He draws one line horizontally across the tre of the ti, and ao cut off the top tenth. He draws a small curly wind symbol in the tre.

  “How is that a desert?” Tom voices Emily’s internal thoughts quietly o her.

  Mr Eleocharis turns his head and fixes Tom with a gre, clearly having heard his ent.

  “Not art, if you have a better symbol, I’d gdly use it. No? Didn’t think so,” he rapidly fires off before turning bad tinuing without pause. “But what she didn’t mention, is the other two major deserts on Dennari.” He draws a line from the edge of the northeast forest to the far southwest coast, and another slightly higher up to the tre of the north coast. After belling both ses with his totally-not-desert wind symbol, he gestures to the thiy strip curving through the tre of the small ti and dividing the northwest desert from the ions.

  “Now, aell me what these ses are?”

  Nico raises his hand again and answers when prompted.

  “Arid grassnds?”

  “Good!”

  He draws a grass shrub orip, as well as on the main body of the Lerus Isles and the bare tre of Keban.

  “Now, there is one final major biome on our p. Do any of you know where and what it is?”

  As Mr Eleocharis looks back again, this time it is Tom who raises his hand.

  “Oh, what a surprise, the artist wants to tribute.”

  Tom clicks his tongue and grumbles out his response:

  “Tom Valentine, first circle mage of house Dahlia. Is there a mountain range somewhere in the west of Keban?”

  “Yes, there is,” Mr Eleocharis agrees with a nod while turning back to the board. “There is a mountain regiht here separating the southern forest from the rest of the ti.”

  He ses off a small strip betweewo forests on Keban and draws a mountain in the tre.

  “Right,” he says with a cp while turning back to the css with a wide smile. “Now that we have established our world map. What resource do you all think fuels tensions across borders?”

  Nico raises his hand and Mr Eleocharis nods for him to speak.

  “Metal?”

  “Nope, anyone else? Feel free to call out, there arely a lot of us in here.”

  “Fertile nd?” Hester offers, joining in for the first time.

  “A good idea, but not quite, Miss?” he asks with an irritated tone.

  “Hester Valentine, first circle mage of house Dahlia,” Hester quickly adds in response.

  “Mana veins,” Emily says with vi.

  “Yes! A perfeswer Miss Coldstone. Five points to Emily Coldstone,” he says, pg his hand on the podium. “The most valuable resource a try fight for is mana veins themselves. While different mana crystal types will be formed depending on the region, the most sistent indication of value is the number of mana veins within a territory. Let’s now break this map down into the different tries, and then we’ll look at where their important mana veins are and what they produce.”

  Turning back to the map, he starts drawing dividing lines. First, is a rge line curving from the northwest of Keban, a third of the way along the top grassnd strip, through the tre of the desert, the tral forest, and curving to horizontally split the rai. The right-hand side of this line is belled as the Modo Kingdom, and the left as the Morzea Republic. He circles the ey of the Lerus Isles ahem as Lebard. Then finally he splits Dennari in half from northeast to southwest, belling the northwest as New Denntimo and the southeast as the Denros Kingdom.

  Emily draws out the map from the board onto a double-page spread in her notebook, along with marking down the capital cities of each as Mr Eleocharis tihe lesson soon ends after a brief overview of the mana-dense regions.

  “That’s all we have time for today. I look forward to seeing you all in two weeks when we look at the current tensioween New Denntimo and Denros. If any of you would like to do some reading in advance, I’d suggest looking for ‘The Fall of Denntimo’ by myself, in the library. Dismissed!”

  Bowing and leaving the , Emily and the twiowards the transportation rooms together while chatting about the lesson.

  “The artist. The artist! Goddess, he was so rude for no reason,” Tom whines.

  “Didn’t you say you liked his snark?” Emily chuckles.

  “That was before the snark was turned on him,” Hester joins in.

  “Urgh, you two are the worst!”

  Tom speeds up and walks ahead of them with a scowl.

  “Aww, don’t be like that. Maybe doing some drawing will calm you down,” Hester calls after him before breaking out in ughter with Emily.

  As the two of them calm dower turns to Emily and asks:

  “Got any pns before lunch?”

  “Nah, I think I’m just gono the training rooms aate for a bit.”

  “Got it, see you at lunch then. I’m going to go pacify the child.”

  “Haha, good luck.” Emily gives a small wave and steps into a transportation room alone.

  Making her way to the training rooms, she finds the only unoccupied room as the same settings as st time. Sitting down in the tre of the gathering array she attempts to clear her mind. However, her thoughts keep going back to her family.

  Damn, I’m wasting points. I should have only chosen double density.

  With her mood dropping further, it takes her twenty mio fully empty her mind and begin using the Teancer’s Breath.

  ***

  Two and a half hours ter, Emily leaves the training room twe points poorer. As she walks towards the transportation rooms to go to the cafeteria, she checks her tribution points on the back of her crest: ‘128’.

  I should use these more sparingly. I don’t know when I’ll get a ce to earn a rge batch more.

  She ehe cafeteria with a scowl, in an even worse mood than this m. Spotting Juliana and the twins, she walks over and drops dowo Juliana, dumping her notebook onto the table.

  “You okay?” Juliana asks her worriedly.

  “It’s nothing, I just wasted a load of tribution points because I couldn’t foy meditation, that’s all,” Emily answers sharply, shaking off the hand Juliana offered for support and immediately regretting it as she flinches back.

  “Sorry, it’s not your fault,” Emily apologises with a sigh. “I’m just in a bit of a shit mood and I don’t thiating was the right choice.”

  “It’s okay, you dre in geopolitics, right?”

  Emily nods, gd to ge the subject.

  “Wao add my family’s territory to it?”

  “Sure,” Emily agrees and opens her notebook to the map she drew, handing Juliana her quill. As Juliana starts drawing, Emily adds: “Oh, and I used solid lines for nd borders and dotted for-“

  She stops as she realises Juliana has already finished drawing a solid line around everything.

  “Ah, sorry!” Juliana looks up with panic.

  “It’s fine, I guess it adds character?” Emily says questioningly.

  “As the resident artist, I’d say it totally improves the piece,” Tom adds to the versation, having embraced his new niame, probably to avoid his sister’s ribbing.

  Emily aer ugh at his ent as Juliana looks at them with fusion.

  Maybe spending my birthday with these guys isn’t so bad.

  1

  This is a poorly realised version of the map Emily drew!

  (Don't judge me too hard, I'm not an artist and this was mostly to help me visualise while writing)