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There was another party in my office, and I was late to it. I wasn’t even fashionably late, I was just railroaded. Maybe party wasn’t an apt description. I felt like I walked into a battlefield before it broke into violence. There was a clear line of those who stood against me and those who were on my side.
I was surprised to see Alto and Archon, along with my brother and Zen.
“Ladies and gentlemen, today is the battle of wills!” I said in a mocking deep announcer’s voice.
“Adeelah.” My brother groaned. “Now is not the time for your weirdness.”
“My weirdness is reserved for times just like this,” I said. “So what’s going on? Why does it look like the next world war is about to break out?”
“Some of the councilmembers have approached with a proposal.”
“Is this for the challenges? Great, that was fast.”
“No, Adeelah,” Gaerlan said and sent a glare in Cael’s direction.
Damn. I had really hoped it would have been that simple.
I sighed, trying to hide the exhaustion running through me. We were only on the second day of classes, and already I was done with talking in circles about the same bull over and over again. They didn’t need to voice it for me to know exactly what this was about. I still asked anyway, because I was awesome like that and believed people could be redeemable. Mostly. “What is going on?”
“I was able to put together a proposal to not only expand the school, but to also make sure our current students have all the knowledge they need to defend themselves,” Cael said. He sounded too smug. I eyed the others around him. His little minions dressed up like supporters. No surprise that Laventis was there. But there was a third councilmember.
LaAnna Detriun. Maestro-level elf, meaning she had mastered control over three elements. In her case, she could use earth, fire, and shadow. Shadow manipulation was rare, and even more rare to be able to control it with other elements. She was scary to me. She always held a neutral-like stance, only choosing whatever she thought benefited her and her people the most.
She had been bought. I wasn’t surprised. Cael would do what he needed to get what he wanted.
“Defend themselves? Or turned into child soldiers?” I asked.
“That’s being dramatic,” Cael said.
“Is it? You are a strong supporter of creating a fast-track into the NSFT program with my students.”
“That isn’t what this is about,” he said, keeping his voice calm.
I fought to do the same with my voice. Otherwise, I’d lose, being seen as a melodramatic. “We both know this is exactly what it’s about.”
“Those children were forced through the Unveiling. They should know how to protect themselves in order to feel safe and prepared for incidents similar to what they already had to go through.”
“We have self-defense classes already available for them,” I said.
“There needs to be more. We aren’t doing our jobs if we don’t do all we can to ensure they are able to keep themselves safe.”
“Those classes were all put together with the help of experts like Zen and others specializing in different aspects of self-defense,” I said. “It will be enough to make sure if one of our students were ever put into a bad situation, they’d be able to survive.”
Cael shook his head and pointed to his councilmember companion. “I showed Councilwoman Detriun the lesson plans for those classes, and she has agreed more can be done for our students.”
“There isn’t much known about Councilwoman Detriun,” I said slowly, trying to gather my thoughts and get them out there before they railroaded me into getting what they wanted. They had planned to catch me unaware and unprepared. What they forgot was that I knew how to think on my feet. Maybe he needed a repeat of when we first went head to head in getting the yesses that I needed to open this academy. “But what we do know about her is impressive. She’s fought in three wars as a leader, bringing her people to victory. Before that, she had been in smaller battles, sometimes as the only survivor forced to go head to head with multiple enemies. She’s known for her ruthlessness and ability to read a situation quickly. She can see ten steps ahead in order to come out at the top with her enemies dead.”
“So you can see that’s she’s more than qualified for her assessment,” Cael said.
“I’d like to hear it from her, not you, Cael. Councilwoman Detriun, is this how you really feel? That we need to do more to teach the kiddies to protect themselves?”
“I do.” Her voice was soft and smooth. “The Unveiling proves that they need every piece of knowledge they can learn in order to survive. More intensive classes will set them up to come out alive if they were ever forced to face a situation.”
Asriel had a contemplated expression on his face, causing my chest to tighten.
“There is merit in what you are saying.”
Detriun’s eyes widened. She was not expecting that from me. She glanced at Cael who looked just as surprised.
“Adeelah,” Rophan warned, as if sensing I was up to something.
“Do you have this proposal. I’m afraid I can’t properly talk about a topic when it hasn’t been shared with me. You haven’t given me anything to look over, and I like to make informed decisions.”
Detriun winced at my little dig at her. That grated on me even more. She knew Cael didn’t have anyone’s interest but his own. A leprechaun stepped around the councilmembers with a binder and hobbled over to us. I hadn’t even noticed he was in the room.
He passed the binder over to me and retreated.
I flipped through the pages, doing my speed reading to take in the information faster. Once I finished reading through, I closed the binder and glared at Cael. “No.”
“Do you not care about the children?” he asked, trying to make me come off as the unreasonable schmuck who didn’t know how to think for herself.
“I only think about the children. These classes have nothing to do with self-defense.”
“Are you saying LaAnna isn’t good at her job? You just praised her.”
“No, she knows exactly what she’s talking about,” I replied. “She’s a fighter, and this proposal proves that. These classes don’t teach self-defense. They teach Naturals how to kill. They don’t teach them how to survive, they teach how to stalk prey.”
“It’s the same thing,” Cael barked out.
“Really?” Gaerlan asked, speaking up. “Are you seriously saying that?” His expression was full of disdain as if he looked at a bug.
“Naturals need to know those skills if they wish to survive if they find themselves stuck in a battle. We all know that battles aren’t always two-sided. It includes collateral damage. How many Naturals have we lost because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
“What pisses me off is that you continue to think as if we are in a state of emergency, that things are still the same as before the Unveiling,” I said.
“Isn’t it though?” he snapped back.
I growled at him, ready to tear his throat out. His eyes widened in response, and his mouth smashed shut, his teeth clacking with the force.
“No. You do not get to teach these kids how to fight. You’re asking them to go out into the world to cause fights. How is that productive toward peace? And don’t try to play this off as having their interest at heart. You would use this program as a way to recruit people into the NSFT to build a Natural army.”
“They need to learn to defend themselves,” Cael practically growled at me.
“I agree. But defending themselves is far different than teaching them to kill. There’s a difference between a self-defense class, which we already have, and an Assassin 101 class, which has no business in this school.”
Cael spluttered. “There is no Assassin 101 class.”
“Really?” I raised an eyebrow. Flicking open the binder, I flipped through the pages until I found the one I wanted. I read directly from it. “Tactical Defense, a class meant to teach all the points of a body to attack to cause instant death. Students will learn how to approach an enemy and quickly put them out of their misery. That’s an assassin class. Oh, or this one, this one sounds fun. Small group tactics for students to learn to work with others when facing a powerful opponent. Not to mention Advance Firearms Training and Searching Techniques because students need to learn to become stealth bombers too. These aren’t for students who need to learn to protect themselves. None of these classes has any business in this academy.”
“This could be good for the Naturals,” Detriun said.
I shook my head. “No.”
“Aren’t you being too stubborn now?” Cael asked.
“Give me a new proposal, that truly improves our teachings on self-defense and I’ll be more amiable. Approving this as it is means giving the humans a reason to get this place shut down. It’ll push them over the edge. Doing this means another war with them. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather avoid another repeat of the Unveiling. We lost enough good people.” It took everything to make sure my voice didn’t break while I talked. Sath came to mind. He had been royal fae, but his ranking wasn’t enough when he was blown to bits in a bombing. He had been one of the good ones, someone determined to fight for Natural’s rights. His beliefs ultimately got him killed.
“Another battle with them, is that a bad thing?” Detriun said.
The room went quiet as we all tried to understand if she’d really spoken that out loud. She had.
“You can’t be serious,” Asriel said.
“I am, though. We’re better prepared now, more equipped in dealing with the humans,” she argued.
“LeAnna, I suggest you stop talking right now.” Asriel’s voice was deadly cold, a clear sign that she needed to shut her trap. “Adeelah makes a good point. It’s obvious that while you have good intentions of making sure our students have the resources they need to stay alive, I can’t stand behind it as it is. Yes, students should know to defend themselves, but there is a line between self-defense and being murderers. These children don’t need to become the latter.”
“The students are interested,” Cael said as a last effort to win.
“The students don’t know what they need. They can want all they want, but this knowledge, they don’t need, not at their age. And I won’t turn my academy into your recruiting ground for some twisted ideals. We do not need a Natural army,” I answered, sounding tired.
Cael’s jaw clenched before he nodded. “Very well. If you can’t see an opportunity even as it glares at you in your face, I’ll have to go over you.”
I narrowed my eyes at the threat. “Go ahead,” I said. “Do your worst. I’ll be sure to be grinning when you fail. I don’t care what you do, you won’t win this.”
“We’ll see.” He grabbed his bag and left. His minions cleared out too, not willing to stay in the room with the enemy when their leader had already abandoned them.
“Adeelah?” Alto asked.
Shaking my head, I raised my hand. “I need some space.” I glared at Rophan when he moved to follow me. “Alone.”
Not waiting for a response, I left with a heavy heart, my stomach twisting with nerves.
