Charisma 100: My Academy Life As A Heartbreaking Commoner-Chapter 224: Advantage

It took quite a bit of effort to not let Serilla distract her for the rest of the day, but as Aegis got home alone, she got time to do something she needed to do.

She found Nazraya in her guest room, sprawled across the bed with a book in her hands. The professor’s hair was loose, spilling across the pillows, and she was wearing a thin robe. Just that thin robe.

"Pet." Nazraya didn’t look up from her book. "You smell like that Frost girl."

"I was with her earlier."

"Mhm. Had fun?"

"Not much, actually."

"Now, that’s shocking." That got a small smile. Nazraya set the book aside and finally looked at Aegis properly. "You didn’t come here just to flirt, I take it. What’s on your mind?"

Aegis walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. She’d been turning this over in her head ever since Lenninsale, trying to figure out how to bring it up. Might as well just say it.

"After I killed the griffin, some people showed up."

Nazraya’s expression didn’t change, but her eyes sharpened.

"What kind of people?"

"Shadow mages. Hooded robes, purple glows under their hoods, the whole aesthetic." Aegis rubbed the back of her neck. "Their leader wore this fox mask. White porcelain with red markings."

Nazraya was quiet for a moment.

"And, pray tell, what did they want with you?"

"To talk, apparently. They said they’d been tracking shadow magic traces around Rosevale for months. Faint signatures, carefully hidden." Aegis paused. "I figured they were talking about you, honestly."

"Possibly." Nazraya’s tone was neutral. "Perhaps I’ve been getting a little too reckless. What else did they say?"

"Some cryptic nonsense about a storm coming. About how I’ve been ’touched by shadows’ and need to choose whether to embrace it or fight it." Aegis shrugged. "Oh, and they offered me a seat at the table. Whatever that means."

"A seat at the table, huh?" Nazraya muttered, more to herself than to Aegis. She stared at the ceiling for a few seconds, her jaw tight.

"You know who they are?"

"I have some educated guesses." Nazraya sat up, letting the robe slip further down one shoulder. "Umbral Blade again, most likely, those fools. Like I said before, darling, they latch onto anyone who shows even a hint of talent with forbidden magic and try to recruit them into their little doomsday club."

"So I shouldn’t worry about them?"

"I didn’t say that. They’re dangerous lunatics." Nazraya reached out and grabbed Aegis by the wrist. "But right now? You have bigger problems. A duel to prepare for, yes? Push these idiots out of your mind for now."

"And if they come back?"

"Then we’ll deal with them." Nazraya tugged, and Aegis tumbled forward onto the bed, landing on top of her. Nazraya’s other hand came up to cup Aegis’s cheek, her thumb brushing across her lips. "But that’s a problem for later. Right now, I think my pet needs to relax."

Aegis opened her mouth to argue, but then Nazraya kissed her, and she decided that yeah, maybe relaxing wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

---

The courtyard was quiet except for the sound of Aegis’s breathing and the whistle of her daggers cutting through the air.

Ruby in her right hand. Sapphire in her left. She spun, slashed at an invisible opponent, ducked under a counterattack that wasn’t there, and came up with both blades crossed in front of her chest.

Not bad.

She reset her stance and went again. Thrust, parry, sidestep, flip the grip on Sapphire, backhand slash. The movements were getting smoother the more she practiced. Her body was starting to remember what to do without her brain having to micromanage every little thing.

"Looking good!" Scarlett called out from the sidelines. She was sitting on a bench with her legs spread wide, leaning back on her hands. "Your footwork’s way better than it was a few weeks ago."

"Thanks." Aegis flipped Ruby in her palm, caught it, and went into another sequence. Slash, slash, duck, roll, come up swinging. "Still feels a bit awkward sometimes."

"That’s normal. You’re mostly a mage these days."

Aegis nodded and kept going. Twirl, sidestep, throw Sapphire at the training dummy, pull it back with a quick burst of aether, catch it mid-spin. Okay, that one was mostly just showing off, but it felt cool.

The problem was, none of this was probably going to matter.

[If I was in Darius’s shoes, the first thing I’d do is separate me from my usual weapons.]

Ruby and Sapphire scaled with her Charisma stat. That was the whole reason they were so effective. Without them, she was just a girl with decent combat training and some magic tricks. With them, she was a monster.

Darius didn’t know about the whole scaling thing, but he knew she liked these knives. He’d seen her fight at the Winter Trials. He knew exactly how dangerous these daggers made her.

So, yeah. If he had any say in the duel’s rules, Aegis was willing to bet her entire manor that "no personal weapons" would be somewhere on the list.

She caught both daggers and let her arms drop to her sides, breathing hard.

"You okay?" Scarlett asked, standing up.

"Just thinking."

"About the duel?"

"About how I’m probably not going to be allowed to use these." Aegis held up Ruby and Sapphire. "Which means all this practice might be for nothing."

Scarlett frowned.

"You think they’d ban your weapons?"

"I think Darius would be an idiot not to try."

Before Scarlett could respond, the sound of footsteps made them both turn. Evelyn was walking across the courtyard toward them, a folded piece of parchment in her hand and a look on her face that Aegis couldn’t quite read.

"My lady."

"Evelyn." Aegis sheathed her daggers. "What’s that?"

"The terms for the duel." Evelyn held out the parchment. "They just arrived."

Aegis took it, feeling the weight of it in her hand. Such a small thing. Just some paper with some words on it. And yet, whatever was written here was probably going to determine the course of the next few days of her life.

She looked at Scarlett, then back at Evelyn.

"Well. Let’s see what we’re working with."