Chapter Four: Tiran

He’d actually done it. He’d spoken to the oracle girl and even walked off with her number. Maybe his approach could have been better. He’d wanted to start casually, trying that smile his mother insisted was a charming one.

Instead, he’d just… blathered about something highly deep and personal from the start. It was a damn miracle she hadn’t run away screaming. He really needed to work on that sort of thing, at least if he actually intended to be around people.

Still… he had her number. She’d also seemed interested in contacting him again. He grinned. They’d even taken a walk around the gardens just to escape his annoying friend, who now, of course, smirked at him from the other end of the classroom.

“Dickhead,” he mouthed to Silas, who blew him a kiss back. It was hard to stay angry with Silas, honestly. That man was unflappable.

“Remember,” Professor Viktan said, pacing around the room, his yellow eyes scanning the students, “the coursework you submit by the end of the week will count for a significant portion of your grade. If I suspect that any of you are using certain…tools to write the work for you, I will give you a zero.”

Viktan seemed to have a dislike for shapeshifters in general. Though he never quite said anything out loud, all of the men who were able to shapeshift, whether they happened to be wolves, bears, dragons, lions, or more – this teacher reserved a silent, negative attitude toward them. But since he’d never said anything actually questionable, no one could find a way to complain about him.

“Sir,” Silas said, raising his hand.

“Yes?”

“My friend Paul said that in another class, he’d completely written an assignment, but the teacher thought that he’d cheated and failed him. If you’re using those AI detectors, they don’t really work.”

“It’s true,” Viktan said, “since I’ve read enough essays and thesis in my miserable lifetime to know there’s only so many ways they can be written. But I do know your writing styles, so if something feels… off. If it is not your own knowledge… then why should I pass you on the basis that this is something you researched and wrote yourself?”

A couple of the students shuffled uncomfortably, but the rest remained rigid as if trying hard to prove that they were not guilty.

When the lesson finished, Viktan continued to hold his piercing stare on each of the students as they left, as if he could peer right into their minds and fish out their will to cheat.

While Dreadmor Academy had a high focus on magical studies, there were still some studies and essays to be written that required research and writing – and the professors were gradually learning to adapt to this new technology that was interwoven with normal school life. It meant a shakeup. It meant teachers changing the way they taught and students learning who was genuine or not.

All interesting stuff, for sure, but not quite as interesting to Tiran as finding another reason to interact with Chloe. The looming, unpleasant stuff about needing to find an updated version of the will – looking to see how feasible it was to challenge his Randall on the claims of family land without being dragged through the grinder when that second uncle also yielded far more financial power…

“Hey,” Silas said, walking beside him while another friend, Alaric, also sidled up, causing half of the corridor to be blocked as they walked down it. “That AI crap sure is getting everywhere now, isn’t it?”

“I think everyone should go back to quill and parchment, personally,” Alaric said, sweeping a hand through his permanently floppy blonde hair. No matter how many times they urged Alaric to actually cut that fringe since he pushed it aside several times an hour without fail, he insisted on keeping it. Absolutely insisted.

When asked why, it seemed he believed that this particular look was attractive to women. Okay, then.

“Quill and parchment? Just kill me now, then,” Silas said before nudging Tiran in an entirely too aggressive way. “Our boy here is finally getting some, by the way, Alaric. Can you believe it? He’s all grown up now.”

“Really?” Alaric asked, dark eyes suddenly bright. “You have a girlfriend?”

“I don’t,” Tiran said quickly. “She’s a friend. Women can be friends.”

“Yes, but this one, surely there’s a bit more than just the willingness to be friends, there?” Silas grabbed him around the shoulder and ruffled his hair, causing a mini fight to break out in the corridor as Tiran bucked.

“Look! I swear if you’re going to keep speculating like this and stating embarrassing shit in front of me and her, I will literally disown you as a friend.” He fixed the coldest stare ever personally mustered, but Silas still grinned in that insouciant way of his.

“Relax, bud. If it’s really that important to you, I’ll try my best to keep things cool for you. But… we want updates. Have you texted her yet? Are you going to meet up again?”

“Why the hell are you so interested in my personal life?”

“It’s exciting. And it’s better than… whatever’s happening over with that lame-ass uncle of yours.”

Right. Tiran’s heart clamped at the notion. Silas was, in his own way, trying to cheer him up. Maybe Silas wasn’t perfect at it. But at least he tried. Alaric, on the other hand, now folded his arms, frowning.

“From what you’ve told me about the whole situation… is it possible they might have found an updated will and just destroyed it?”

“People tend to make multiple copies for that reason,” Tiran said. “And there would usually be a record kept of such a will being updated. That’s difficult to find out, though, when you don’t know what attorney might have been used or who the executor was. It’s possible my parents updated it and went to a different notary. It’s even possible that a notary has an awareness of where the will is, but if there was an executor there, they haven’t emerged. But… the current notary and executor for the will that has emerged is firmly in my uncle’s favor. Uncle Max suspects it has been like that for a while.”

“Family politics,” Alaric spat. “I’m still convinced that some funny business happened to your parents. More than an accident.”

“Hard to prove,” Tiran said bitterly, “when they have all the hallmarks of a classic accident.”

“But they’re dragon shifters. It takes a lot to actually get them down.”

“Yes, and several thousand tons of rock did, indeed, get them down.”

“Ah.” Alaric snapped shut at that.

The gloomy thought of potential sabotage pervaded, but no evidence existed, and it seemed a little unfair to instantly criminalize or suspect his second uncle just because of the coincidence. At the same time, though, Tiran really wanted to be right in his dislike.

He just… wished that life wasn’t so tricky on these things at times. The only thing left was to keep going, keep hoping, and endure it all to the best of his ability.

His uncle called him at some point during the evening when all the students were meant to be unwinding for bed.

“I wanted to ask you something,” his uncle Max said. “You remember you were talking about Chloe Gardner? How did her powers help you?”

“Uh… yeah?” Tiran hadn’t been entirely truthful about the situation with his uncle. He mentioned feeling down and Chloe sensing it. He didn’t, however, mention how dangerous his feelings had been. A brief moment of insanity, of despair and grief so great that the urge to just… stop feeling it had temporarily overridden his rational thoughts.

It haunted him on a tiny, hard-to-admit level that those feelings had gotten so big that it was even possible to feel like that when he’d always considered himself rational, logical, and not impulsive.

“She finally contacted one of the professors to ask about the dryad. I told this you before. We’re going to arrange a small escort for her to visit the swamp at the end of the week. They would prefer a fire mage to go with her since if the dryad does attempt anything…. untoward – they have massive fear and respect for a fire mage. So, I wanted to ask if you might be interested in being a part of that escort because your powers are fire-based. Normally, I would go, but I’m off next Thursday, so that won’t be possible.”

“You’re off? Why?”

His uncle’s expression darkened. “Let’s just say I have some people who have been hired to try and dig a bit more into the cave collapse, as well as to call around to some of the various agencies to see if there was an updated will. I don’t want to bother you with the details. I figure you already have enough to focus on.”

“I… thanks.” Tiran ground his teeth in frustration. He didn’t want to have his uncle involved in his affairs, putting out fires and trying to uncover secrets. But he just – he couldn’t – he couldn’t physically and mentally do it. Not now. It felt like a shameful weakness on his part. Even when Max said it wasn’t and that the whole weight of the world shouldn’t be on his shoulders, that he was young, that his parents wouldn’t have wanted him to be burdened when studying…

“I’ll give you a refresher about dryads and some of the other things you may also encounter in that swamp. You should be safe, but it is always better to be cautious.”

There might be less need to be cautious if the academy hadn’t built itself in the hotbed of supernatural activity, but whatever.

“Yeah, that’s fine; thanks. I appreciate it. It should be interesting to see if she will get a gift.”

“Oh, it is. It surely is. The big gifts always invariably end up in a vault somewhere, but the small ones, they let them keep.”

It seemed a little unfair that they might snatch away a gift given to someone, but Tiran at least recognized that some artifacts might be exceedingly dangerous in the wrong hands. It still didn’t explain why the capricious fae sometimes liked to sprinkle ridiculously powerful gifts in the hands of mortals – but perhaps they just got a kick out of the chaos it caused.

His uncle ended the call, and he figured that, hey, now was a good excuse to contact Chloe.

So… a little bird told me that you’ve finally asked about the dryad, and the teachers are arranging for you to visit her on Friday.

A blue tick appeared with the message.

Whoa. She’s already on her phone.

Dots bounced as she commenced typing.

Oh, you heard already? From your uncle, I suppose?

Yes. He also asked if I’d be there to help escort you on the Friday. Turns out they need someone with fire magic in case the dryad tries anything funny.

Wow, you’re coming? That’s great! So now I have an excuse to meet up with you. :)

He blinked at that message. Somehow, he hadn’t expected to read… enthusiasm from her. It threw him for a loop, and he tried to process the message, the intent behind it. Words could only do so much. He really needed to hear her, to see her expressions.

Yes! You’ll never be rid of me at this rate. ;)

That was okay to send, hopefully.

I don’t plan to be…

As his brain processed those words in a minor state of shock, the dots bounced again.

I didn’t mean for that to sound so suggestive; sorry there!

He snorted.

Not at all! Just friendly banter, right?

Yeah, totally!

Interesting that it didn’t look like he was the only one aiming for contact. It made him feel a little less weird for wanting it. Hopefully, his fire magic would be enough to ward the dryad off since he didn’t really fancy his chances if a fully wild supernatural creature decided to go toe to toe with him. While he might be able to throw around fire and shake off his human skin into a draconic one, the wild fae had a frightening set of skills and morals that those without magic or those born into a normal world would never quite comprehend.

With a small lump in his throat, he remembered a hunting trip that his family had gone on once; they’d all taken off into the sky, flying toward a certain mountain range heavy with the supernatural and with some delicious animals whose meat his family liked to cure and dry into jerky.

In those lonely, untamed mountains, certain spirits lingered over the range. Some were dangerous to human life, and some were dangerous to draconic life.

One of the creatures, a small type of fae, had faced off with his family when they camped in an area that directly intervened with the territory of those mountain spirits. The whole family had been there back then, including the now-hated second uncle, who had confronted the spirit with his usual air of arrogance, threatening to transform, to breathe fire over everything.

Turned out that aggravating the mountain spirits wasn’t wise, as their camp came under attack from some of nature’s finest that evening, from bears to wolves to eagles to ants and stinging insects, and they all needed to beat a hasty retreat away from the spot and collectively agreed never to go there again.

He remembered how his mother raged against the uncle for some time, saying that they might have been able to leave peacefully or even stay there if they’d just been a tad more respectful to the creatures, but no, of course, he had to stomp around and flap his stupid wings and huff.

They did get their food, their jerky, and quite the adventure out of it, but it had left an indelible image on young Tiran’s mind – something that overshadowed all his future interactions with the uncle, knowing how he had disrespected the wild in the face of his own assumed power.

A part of him feared a repeat when they encountered the dryad. That somehow, he might take that role of arrogance, threatening something he simply couldn’t understand. That fear motivated him to do long hours of research on dryads, on proper conduct in the supernatural, and on understanding them on the level they deserved and needed.

Bonus points if he didn’t screw up his first official outing with Chloe, either. That’d be nice.