Chapter 3: Class
The ornate double doors swung open, and a faint scent of white lilies drifted out to meet them.
White lilies were Cecilia Veris's favorite flower. Like her name, they carried meaning in the temple's teachings: goodness and purity.
The classroom was spacious and well-lit, two full walls given over to floor-to-ceiling windows that let the morning in without reservation. Bookshelves along the remaining walls held neat rows of texts and scrolls. At the center stood two side-by-side desks, and between them a plain white porcelain vase held a few white lily stems arranged with simple care.
A young woman stood at the window. She turned at the sound of the door.
Cecilia Veris. Twenty-three years old, from a minor noble family that had seen better days. Well-educated, and hired by the Aindra household two years prior as a private tutor.
She had deep brown hair pinned loosely at the nape of her neck, a few loose strands falling against her cheeks. Her eyes were a quiet grey, warm and attentive. She wore a simple dark dress, a modest silver brooch at the collar.
"Young Master Lucian, Lady Lakyus, good morning." She gave a slight bow, her voice gentle and composed. "Right on time today."
Lakyus shot Lucian a pointed look. The message needed no translation: I'm the one who got him here.
Lucian pretended not to see it and took his seat.
"Then let us begin." Cecilia opened the lesson plan on her desk.
* * *
"And so the Silver-White Knight reached down and lifted what remained of his broken lance. He charged into the tide of the undead without a single step of hesitation, buying precious time for the villagers fleeing behind him."
Cecilia-sensei was still telling the story. Lucian was having a harder and harder time keeping his objections inside.
How was a knight who was, at absolute best, hero-level supposed to hold off that many undead? Simply delaying even a level-thirty-five Death Knight, and not a particularly high-damage one at that, would already be stretching credibility to its limit. If this story's Silver-White Knight pulled off what the tale claimed, the man was a monster by any Kingdom standard.
Setting that aside: knighthood in the Re-Estize Kingdom was a rank that could only be granted to nobles. It was a preserve carved out specifically for second sons who stood no chance of inheriting titles or land. Lords kept it tightly within their own circles.
Gazef Stronoff himself, the future champion of the Royal Select and by most accounts the strongest warrior in the entire Kingdom, had been blocked from his knighthood entirely due to his common birth. The nobility had simply closed ranks.
Which meant that if this Silver-White Knight was from the Re-Estize Kingdom, he was at minimum a noble. And Kingdom nobles who chose not to actively harm the common folk were already considered admirable. Sacrificing their life for a village of commoners? That happened in stories told to children. Not anywhere else.
If, on the other hand, the Silver-White Knight was from the Baharuth Empire, then Cecilia-sensei was sitting in front of the heir to one of the Kingdom's oldest noble families and enthusiastically praising the heroism of an Empire knight.
Cecilia-sensei. Are you genuinely not interested in getting ahead? And now that he thought about it, Lucian had developed a working theory for exactly how the Veris family had managed to fall.
There was also the matter of the story's structure. Even as fairy tales went, a knight was supposed to save a princess. That was the formula. Knight dies heroically for the princess, princess gratefully marries the prince. The nobility got their fantasy, the royal family got loyalty, and the prince and princess got true love. That was a story that aligned with noble values.
What Cecilia-sensei had just told them was a story that a three-year-old would have trouble believing.
"Cecilia-sensei, I'm going to become a Silver-White Knight one day! I really will!"
Lucian experienced what he could only describe as a Bone King-grade shutdown. He turned toward his sister with some effort.
Lakyus stood with both hands clasped at her chest, her pale green eyes alight with a completely unclouded and genuine radiance, her entire expression lit up as if the story's heroism had caught something inside her on fire.
The corner of Lucian's eye twitched.
He looked at his sister again. This was the Aindra family's eldest daughter. The future model of noble conduct. She was currently watching the family tutor with the expression of someone who had found their life's inspiration.
It was over.
Lucian pressed an invisible palm to his forehead. His sister had been thoroughly and irreversibly led astray by Cecilia-sensei. The future argument with their parents about becoming an adventurer was not going to come from some wandering spirit of independence. It was going to come from you, Cecilia-sensei, and the stories you've been telling her.
"It is truly wonderful that Lady Lakyus has such an aspiration." Cecilia smiled warmly, something thoughtful sitting in her expression. "The most precious thing about the Silver-White Knight is not how skilled he was in battle. It is that he was willing to give his life to protect others. That courage and that goodness. That is why this story has lasted."
Courage and goodness.
Lucian's expression shifted at those words.
He could not hold back. "Cecilia-sensei, the Silver-White Knight died in the end, didn't he?"
Cecilia paused, then nodded. "Yes. He gave his life."
"Then there's the answer." Lucian leaned back in his chair, a lazy edge to his voice. "Never mind the heroics. He died. A knight who dies has nothing left. A dead knight is a good knight. That's the real reason this story has survived."
The room went quiet for a moment.
Lakyus blinked, looking uncertainly from her brother to her teacher and back again.
Cecilia's expression did not change, but her grey eyes held on Lucian for a moment before she laughed softly.
"Young Master Lucian makes... a fair point." She lowered her gaze and smoothed her skirt, her voice still unhurried. "Though stories do not always exist only to reflect reality. Sometimes they exist to show people something worth hoping for."
She looked up. Her gaze was steady and calm.
"Even if very few nobles in the real world would ever sacrifice themselves for a commoner, the fact that someone told this story means the person who told it believed that kind of goodness was possible. That matters too."
Lucian was quiet for a moment. Then, unwilling to concede, he brought out his last option. "Cecilia-sensei, wasn't today's lesson supposed to be faith-based magic? We've spent a great deal of time on a story that isn't part of the curriculum."
Can't win the argument, change the subject entirely. The time-honored approach of a previous generation, but still effective.
Cecilia did not pursue the point. She turned to the next page of her lesson plan. "The story was only meant to help you understand faith itself. When someone prays, they are praying for protection. What they place their faith in is the goodness of the miracle they are asking for. Now, let us continue with today's lesson..."
"I'm still going to be a knight someday," Lakyus murmured quietly beside him.
Lucian said nothing.
He turned his head and looked out the window.
Sunlight fell through the floor-to-ceiling glass and lay across the white lilies on the desk, tracing a faint gold edge along each petal.
Believing that goodness exists...
He thought of his past life. The days packed with calculations and competing interests, where nothing moved without something being gained or exchanged in return.
In this world, what was goodness worth? Could goodness protect everything the Aindra family had?
But.
He glanced at Lakyus beside him, bent carefully over her work. He glanced at Cecilia standing at the front, calm and unhurried in everything she did.
Fine. For now, let her believe it.
Lucian turned his eyes back to the open textbook in front of him.
Outside, the morning light was steady and clear. The scent of lilies drifted in, faint and soft, just at the edge of notice.