“Is following me all you do?” Elana hissed.

She glanced over her shoulder to make sure her father’s study was still closed before continuing. It was.

She turned back to Soren, eyes narrowing. “Surely, you have better things to do with your time.”

Soren gave her a look that toed the line between flat, unimpressed, and faintly entertained all at once.

Elana’s hand twitched with the urge to smack it off his face. Even if she let herself, she doubted she’d get past his reflexes. He was insufferably competent.

Soren had been all-but-adopted by her family from the start because of it all. His irritatingly prodigal talent. His uncanny affinity for the sword. His stupidly class-defying capacity for mid-tier magic, a level rarely achieved among commoners.

Most people were born with some small degree of mana and magical affinity, but anything mid- to higher-level was generally understood as a marker of noble blood.

It was one of the many byproducts of the academy system. Anyone with magical talent was sought after and either adopted or married into existing powerful bloodlines.

But Soren was a rare talent who stood in opposition to that. He was her opposite in every way: common-born, magically gifted in spite of it, and personable enough to be well-liked by just about anyone who met him.

Her hand twitched again. If she could just smack him once, it would be so satisfying—but it would never land. And even if it did, the sound would draw her parents’ attention. That was the last thing she needed.

A handkerchief eclipsed the lantern in Soren’s hand, leaving only the faintest ring of warmth cast at his feet. His disapproval was subdued, but she saw it plainly in the shadows of his face.

“My lady,” he repeated, his voice gentle but stern. “Listening at doors is a rather crass habit.”

“And?” she said, short and clipped. “What business is it of yours?”

“Lady Elana…” Soren sighed. His eyebrows pinched together.

If her mother hadn’t so adamantly focused on breaking her habit of speaking emotionally, she would have chewed him out for looking at her like that. Instead, she stepped to the right to brush past him in the alcove.

He mirrored her.

With the alcove’s recessed stone to her right, the cold marble bust of some distant von Drachenfels ancestor to her left, and Soren standing like a wall in her path, she had nowhere to go.

Elana’s shoulders tensed. He wasn’t letting her go—why?

Unlike Soren, Elana was a stunning disappointment even with blood on her side. Her father was the Northern Kingdom’s most decorated war hero, a Special Rank dark mage who had earned his title. Her mother had been a high-ranking noblewoman of the Eastern Kingdom and was an A-Rank botanical mage in her own right.

All six of Elana’s former siblings had been born with untold levels of mana potential. And then, there was her, a staggering failure, even by commoners’ standards—and she’d never been evaluated by commoners’ standards.

She wouldn’t have been surprised if her father had kept Soren under his wing, despite his previous affiliation with Antoine, in order to formally adopt him. The great Duke Gerard de Vanquise still needed an heir, after all. With Antoine being expelled from the family and Elana being… Elana, Soren was the obvious contender.

But he would never have been able to inherit the title if she were still alive. Blood was still the stronger claim.

Her father so clearly didn’t expect her to survive the academy if he was keeping Soren so close. That was fine. Nothing new.

She’d fought for every scrap of recognition from her parents she had ever received. And, when the time came, she’d do it at the academy too.

In no world would she let herself be replaced like that, least of all by him.

Soren sighed again, louder this time, as if he could read the trajectory of her thoughts. He closed his eyes, raking a hand through his dark, mussed hair.

He usually kept it orderly, but his unkempt waves were on full display. Judging by the damp roots—which were at that moment a deep shade of slate akin to the night sky rather than the blue of a storm—he was just getting in from a late night of training.

Typical. He’d always been hard working, something that made him annoyingly hard to criticize.

“Are you going to tell my father?” she asked, her lips pressing into a thin white line.

He rubbed the back of his neck and, after a long, pregnant pause, sighed again. “No, my lady, so long as you return to your quarters.”

Her parents’ muffled voices were no longer audible. Whatever it was they’d been fighting about, it was over. All she’d gleaned was that she was, once again, a disappointment.

And a ‘coward’ now, apparently.

She took a long, deep breath, tamping down the sharp twinge in her chest. She needed to get a grip. She couldn’t let on that anything was wrong because Soren was the last person she wanted to be fielding questions from.

His constant, fake concern would be the death of her.

“Fine,” she muttered, crossing her arms. “I’ll go back.”

She glared, waiting for him to get out of her way.

He didn’t. Instead, he searched her face.

Elana tried to school her expression into a practiced mask of indifference, but her frown persisted. She’d always been shit with a poker face when it came to Soren.

Illuminated by the narrow ring of light still visible from the base of his lantern, he almost looked like a stranger. The lavender haze of his eyes—he’d always had uselessly beautiful eyes—was painted with the warm orange glow of the fire, robbing him of his familiarity for a brief moment.

It was just one more thing to add to the list of things she envied about him, in stark contrast to the eerie yellow of her own eyes—inherited from her father, who at least had the striking black hair to pull it off.

Elana’s hair was a mundane, straight, perfectly neutral brown. Not even her mother’s glossy, dark chocolate curls. If not for her obvious resemblance to her father, she’d have questioned whether she was adopted.

But dwelling on the differences between her and Soren and the ways in which he outshone her wasn’t going to change anything. If she’d learned anything in the past several years, it was that.

And, she’d given him more than enough time to get out of her way, but for some reason he still wasn’t budging.

Elana straightened her spine and cleared her throat. “I said, I’ll go back.”

Soren didn’t move. She gave him a look, but he simply raised his eyebrows in silent challenge.

“What do you want?” she hissed, resisting the urge to stomp her foot. He had a way of bringing out the worst in her.

He paused, his features tightening before relaxing into the weakest smile she’d ever seen.

“I’m concerned for you, my lady.” His tone had shifted to something gentler, as if he thought her fragile. “If you keep listening at doors, you’re bound to hear something you aren’t meant to.”

“I’ll bear that in mind, but you can keep your concern,” she said dryly, even though what she really wanted to tell him was to leave well enough alone.

His lips quirked up, just slightly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Elana’s composure threatened to slip. “You have a lot of nerve for someone who’s still only an attendant.”

“I’ve been told I have a lot of nerve for someone who’s only a squire as well,” he added, decidedly unhelpful, with a maddeningly noncommittal shrug.

“Look,” Elana began, pinching the bridge of her nose.

Her mother had told her it wasn’t dignified, but there would be no controlling her expression in that moment if she didn’t.

“It’s not as if there’s anything left to hear anyway. Get out of my way, and I’ll promptly return to my room.”

“Of course you will,” Soren agreed, finally stepping aside. He gestured for her to join him. “I’ll escort you there myself, after all.”

“You know, it’s poor etiquette for a man to be alone with a lady after sundown,” she said, scowling.

“It’s worse etiquette for a lady to skulk around closed doors, listening in on private conversations,” he replied, daringly casual.

Elana shot him another look. “This and that are two different things.”

“Fine.” Soren shrugged haplessly. “I’ll keep your snooping a secret if you keep my transgression one, then.”

She looked at him for a long while as they walked side by side, but he kept his gaze firmly ahead with an expression so peaceful, so unperturbed that it was impossible for her to read him.

“Fine,” she muttered.

He glanced down at her, eye contact quick and fleeting, and then back ahead. The ghost of a smile pulled at his lips—and that was somehow worse than his calm.

“Fine,” he echoed.