RATTLE! RATTLE!
The horse carriage rattled violently as Mary slowly woke up from the momentary sleep that she had slipped into, her head lifting from the wooden wall she had been resting against as she blinked several times and tried to regain her bearings.
Around her, the scenery remained largely unchanged.
Beside her was her sister, Stacy, who remained sound asleep with her head resting against Mary’s shoulder, trusting that Mary would remain awake and keep watch while she caught up on some much-needed sleep.
Surrounding the two sisters were twenty-three other young military recruits, all of whom had been selected alongside them to join this year’s intake of commoners trying their luck at becoming nobles through the Imperial Academy.
Some were sleeping just like Stacy, while others quietly talked amongst themselves, played cards or stared outside through the open sides of the carriage, watching the countryside slowly pass them by as their destination drew closer with every passing hour.
Mary rubbed her eyes before straightening herself slightly, careful not to disturb Stacy as she looked outside once again.
For the past several hours, there had been very little worth looking at.
The road had remained largely the same, surrounded by open countryside, scattered farms and the occasional village, while the military carriage carrying them continued rattling along at an uncomfortable pace that made proper sleep nearly impossible.
However, this time, something had changed.
There were considerably more carriages upon the road.
Mary initially paid little attention to them, until a particularly extravagant carriage came thundering past their own, pulled by two enormous white steeds while several mounted guards wearing polished armour rode alongside it.
Her eyes instinctively followed them, as they soon disappeared into the distance, however, another beautiful carriage passed soon after.
Then another.
Unlike the battered military transport carrying Mary and the other recruits, these carriages looked as though enormous amounts of money had been spent merely decorating them.
Family crests had been carved into their doors, expensive fabrics covered their windows, while some were pulled by magnificent horses considerably larger than the exhausted animals currently dragging Mary’s carriage along.
Others did not use horses at all.
One enormous black carriage rolled past them while being pulled by a pair of four-legged Aether beasts Mary had never seen before, their muscular bodies covered in dark scales while faint smoke escaped their nostrils with every breath.
Several recruits immediately leaned towards the opening.
"What the hell are those?"
A boy sitting opposite Mary muttered.
"Beats me."
Someone beside him replied.
Mary continued watching as the strange carriage quickly disappeared farther along the road, although before she could turn away, another decorated carriage overtook them from behind.
’Why are we suddenly seeing so many noble carriages at once?’
Mary wondered, before the obvious answer finally occurred to her.
Her posture immediately straightened.
She leaned closer towards the open side of the carriage and looked farther ahead, following the growing stream of noble transports until something enormous gradually became visible beyond the distant landscape.
For several seconds, Mary simply stared.
’Is that...’
Her heart skipped a beat.
The Imperial Academy.
Even from this distance, the place looked far grander than anything she had imagined during the journey.
Enormous gray structures rose beyond several layers of defensive walls, while tall towers stretched high above the surrounding buildings with Imperial banners fluttering proudly from their rooftops.
The Academy grounds themselves appeared so vast that Mary initially struggled to understand where they ended, as from this distance the entire institution looked closer to a fortified town than any school she had ever imagined.
"Stacy..."
Mary muttered, nudging her sister gently.
Stacy merely shifted against her shoulder.
"Stacy, wake up."
"Hmm...?"
Her sister groaned before reluctantly opening her eyes.
"What?"
"We’re here."
That immediately woke her.
Stacy pushed herself upright before following Mary’s gaze through the side of the carriage, and within moments, the sleepiness disappeared from her expression entirely.
"Woah..."
She whispered.
Mary could hardly blame her.
Another noble carriage passed them while they stared, temporarily blocking their view of the Academy before racing ahead towards the distant gates.
For the first time, Mary became painfully aware of how pathetic their own transportation looked by comparison.
The military had provided them with what appeared to be an old troop transport, consisting of little more than a large wooden carriage with two benches running along either side and a weathered canvas covering stretched above their heads.
Twenty-five children had been squeezed inside alongside their belongings, while two ordinary horses pulled them towards the Academy at whatever pace the ageing carriage could tolerate.
Meanwhile, some noble children seemed to be arriving with enough guards and servants to form small military units of their own.
Mary watched another magnificent carriage roll past before glancing down towards the standard Imperial Army uniform covering her body.
’So these are the people we’re going to be competing against...’
She thought, as the realization caused the excitement she had felt moments earlier to become considerably more complicated.
Those children had probably known since birth that they would eventually attend the Imperial Academy.
They had likely spent years receiving private lessons, learning noble etiquette, studying politics and training beneath experienced Ascendants, while Mary and Stacy had spent most of their childhood worrying about whether their master had stashed enough food away to feed them during winter, or whether they were going to sleep hungry.
Yet somehow, after everything that had happened during the past year, the two of them were now travelling towards the exact same gates.
’The past year has really opened my eyes...’
Mary thought, as watching the noble carriages pass reminded her just how different the world outside Ashfang Village had turned out to be from what she had once imagined.
Back then, when Garron had taken them away from the village, she had genuinely believed that they were being given an opportunity to escape poverty and build better lives for themselves within the Valdrak Empire.
However, the longer she remained beneath the military, the more foolish that belief seemed in hindsight.
After being nurtured and guided by Garron as though they were his own children, they had been ultimately sold to the military like livestock, with the Empire feeding them, clothing them and training them only because it expected to eventually recover that investment through years of military service.
’Nobody in this world truly means well for you...’
Mary thought, as that was perhaps the most important lesson the past year had taught her.
Even when someone offered an opportunity that appeared generous, there was almost always something they wanted in return, which meant that waiting for someone else to improve her circumstances would only ensure that her entire life remained controlled by people more powerful than herself.
The military had made that painfully clear.
During the past year, Mary had learned what it meant to wake whenever another person commanded her to wake, eat whenever she was permitted to eat and continue training long after her body had begun begging her to stop.
She had marched until the skin beneath her feet blistered, repeated combat drills until her arms could barely lift her weapon and watched recruits collapse from exhaustion only to be screamed at until they forced themselves upright again.
And after all that suffering, the future waiting for most of them was hardly any better.
They would become soldiers.
They would march wherever their superior officers commanded them to march, fight whoever they were ordered to fight and perhaps eventually die upon some distant battlefield because someone they had never met decided that their lives were worth sacrificing for an objective they barely understood.
’If I don’t make use of every opportunity that comes my way, then that will become my life as well.’
Mary realized, as her gaze slowly shifted towards Stacy sitting beside her.
That was why the two of them had been unbelievably fortunate.
Out of all the children recruited alongside them, their talent had been noticed, and after months of evaluations and increasingly difficult training, both sisters had somehow earned two of the twenty-five military recommendations available for this year’s Imperial Academy intake.
However, their friends Garsim and Dara had not been nearly as fortunate.
Neither of them had made the final cut, which meant that while Mary and Stacy were currently travelling towards the Imperial Academy, their old friends remained behind within the military, continuing along the same path originally intended for all of them.
Mary had no idea when she would see either of them again.
Perhaps they would eventually become officers.
Perhaps they would distinguish themselves enough to earn another opportunity somewhere down the line.
Or perhaps the next time Mary heard either of their names would be when someone casually informed her that they had died carrying out an order.
The possibility made her stomach tighten.
Slowly, Mary looked towards the Imperial Academy once again, watching its enormous walls grow larger as their battered carriage continued along the road.
Compared to the noble children arriving around them, she and Stacy possessed almost nothing.
They had no influential families waiting behind them, no private instructors who had spent years preparing them for Academy life and no enormous fortunes capable of purchasing whatever resources they required.
However, they had something that Garsim, Dara and countless other military recruits desperately wished they possessed.
A chance.
And after everything Mary had endured to reach this point, she refused to waste it merely because the people studying beside her happened to carry noble surnames.
’Let them look down on me if they want.’
Mary thought, as another expensive carriage thundered past their own.
’Let them laugh at our clothes, our carriage or the fact that we came from the military. None of that matters if I graduate.’
Because unlike many of the nobles travelling towards those gates, Mary knew exactly what waited for her if she failed.
Three years from now, if she walked out of the Imperial Academy without graduating, there would be no wealthy family estate waiting for her and no powerful father capable of arranging another comfortable future.
She would simply return to the military.
Back to the drills, to following orders, and back to living beneath commanders who possessed the authority to decide where she went, who she fought and whether the risks she was ordered to take eventually got her killed.
Mary’s fingers slowly tightened around the wooden edge of the carriage as the Academy gates drew closer.
’No matter how difficult those three years become, they cannot possibly be worse than the life waiting for me if I fail.’
She thought, before glancing towards Stacy once more.
’We were lucky enough to get this opportunity when so many others didn’t, so now I have to make sure that both of us take full advantage of it.’
She thought as her gaze returned towards the magnificent Imperial Academy ahead, as the nervousness she had initially felt while watching the noble carriages gradually hardened into determination.
’I will graduate from this place.’
Mary vowed silently.
’No matter what it takes.’