The dorm room smelled new.
Not clean - that was a different smell - but new. Like it had been built recently, but that couldn't be.
Acomet Academy was old. Three or four hundred years old, and it hadn't been renovated in quite some time.
Give it some time and it'll start smelling like me.
I sat on my bed with my uniform already on because it was the first day of school.
The uniform was clean too, in a stylistic sense.
It was more 'typical' of a school uniform than I had imagined. It was strangely modern too - a blue suit jacket and vest, and off-white pants.
Sleek. Stylish even.
The academy allowed you to modify it a bit, and I decided to wear a dark shirt underneath - gave me a sort of flair. I thought it said "Bad boy" or "Socialite".
Usually, dorm rooms housed three students. That was the standard. This one had only two beds, because there were no more students to house.
Rooms were randomly assigned, with some caveats that would be obvious later. Something astronomically lucky - or something more divine - had played a trick, because my roommate was Caleb Lightbane.
I know, right? Lightbane and Shadowboon together again.
His bed was by the window.
Not even an hour ago, he was staring out the window. We were on the second floor, and it looked like he was narrating his life in his head. Maybe he was praying and thanking the gods.
I did - in a short mumble.
"Well," I said casually when we first met, "this is convenient."
We were out of anyone's earshot, but we were still outside our room, so if I hugged him, or did anything weird, people would still see. We were supposed to be strangers.
"Yeah," he said. "It is."
No dramatic reunion. Nothing. Just two people meeting for the first time. We just shook hands.
Sharing a room meant no pretending after hours. No constructed masks. Just… us.
Which was rare.
But we weren't even in the same class.
Caleb was placed in Class 1-A, and I was in 1-B.
Both mattered, and even before they started, this freshman year's classes were historical.
It was the first year where many other races attended. Humans were in both classes, but in 1-A there were races of nations which Astar had historical alliances with - light-elves, dwarves, gnomes, and fae, which were little fairies, like Tinkerbell.
In 1-B, there were the rougher races, with tenuous alliances - orcs, goblins, trolls, dark-elves, and the beast-folk.
Races that, a few generations ago, would've been servants at best - or property at worst.
Now they were students. It wasn't very subtle what they were doing.
They called it integration, but this wasn't integration - it was kind of racist.
Carefully placing the less "safe" races into one place. Neat lines drawn with polite language and official seals. Containment dressed up as progress.
Oh well. At least it happened. Progress is progress.
That didn't happen by accident.
My father, Lord Hobert Woodborn, had a lot to do with that. He opened many opportunities to raise the social status of disadvantaged people. The printing business employed many non-humans.
And money opened many doors. And Woodborn pressure had kept them from slamming shut again.
And now here I was, walking into the result. I kind of liked that - institutional change.
After a quick change, I headed out into the halls and to the first class.
It would begin soon. Caleb had already left because he wanted to appear to be a goody two-shoes.
I tried to be more casual.
There were many students - a giant sea of teenagers, and a few faculty members - walking, talking, clustered into loose groups, already sorting themselves.
There was something oddly grounding to be just another uniform in a place full of them. Just a guy, filling another seat.
And finally, I could just be Edward, not Shadowboon, not Lord, and not the child of darkness. I kind of had it with the dark role-playing for such a long time.
Though I was still role-playing, but here, I had to do less of it, and with another role that could be more… me.
I slipped through it all easily.
"Hey! Wait!"
The voice came from behind me. Clear. Confident. A girl, not a woman yet. Used to being heard. Maybe I was projecting too many things in that description.
I stopped and turned.
The girl who'd called out froze mid-step.
For a brief moment, we just stared at each other.
She was a bit shorter than the other girls and had long black hair with blue eyes.
She had long, straight bangs that went to her eyebrows. I thought they were too long.
Her back was straight and her eyes were steady, not searching. She was outwardly confident in herself.
And the students around her took an extra step to get out of her way, out of respect.
I knew who she was, but she didn't know me.
Princess Io Amoon.
This would be the first time we would meet.
Then she frowned, just slightly.
"Oh," she said. "You're not - "
And without even thinking about it, I adjusted.
Posture straightened. Smile calibrated. Voice ready to be smooth, measured, unthreatening, maybe a bit slimy. Polite, like an ass-kisser.
Performance mode on. It was automatic.
"Edward Shadowboon," I said smoothly, placing a hand over my chest.
Her confusion shifted into realization.
"…You look like him from behind," she said.
"Devastatingly handsome?" I offered. She was looking for Caleb. No wonder she mistook him for me. We were the same guy.
"I was looking for someone else," she said. "I thought - well."
There was a pause.
I straightened.
Then I bowed. Properly.
"Princess Io," I said. "It is good to make your acquaintance."
"You don't have to - "
I took her hand gently, just long enough to press a light kiss against her knuckles. Formal. Polite. Old-fashioned.
"Royalty deserves to be acknowledged," I said easily. "Especially on their first day, and first meeting."
"Thank you," she said, inclining her head. It was more protocol than actual thanks. She must have had this experience a thousand times by now. "And apologies. I didn't mean to stop the wrong person."
"No harm done," I replied.
As she turned to leave, she glanced back at me.
"Maybe I'll see you around, Edward."
I watched her disappear into the crowd.
Then I turned toward the 1-B corridor, pressing myself through the bodies of students.
I slipped into the corridor flow and let it carry me toward the lecture halls.
1-A and 1-B were almost right next to each other, but the classrooms themselves were pretty big.
I stepped inside.
It had tiered seating curved around a wide central floor, rows rising gently toward the back. There had to be close to a few dozen students already inside, and more filtering in by the second.
Until there were about fifty.
About half of the students were human, which tracked with what I'd heard. Attendance among "standard" Astarian humans was lower this year - less academy, more private tutoring, and more military-track enlistments.
I saw orcs immediately because they were the hardest to miss. Broad shoulders with tusks, uniforms adjusted rather than tailored. There were four of them - two girls and two boys. Even among orcs, the women were the bigger ones. I guess that was a general rule, not just for humans in this world.
I could only assume that the boys, even orcs, were also mages.
In comparison, Regan was bigger and less rowdy, especially when it came to volume, than them.
There were many beast-folk, but I couldn't make them all out. Some were furrier than others, or had longer tails or ears.
Many boys had holes in their pants to let their tails hang out, and it was the same for the girls.
Or their tails hung down because the skirts they wore were open. It depended on the length and volume of the tail.
I took a seat about two-thirds of the way up, center-left. It was a good spot.
I looked around, and it didn't seem anyone noticed me.
Oh yeah, I had no friends here. Even though my father was the reason many of them even had the chance to be here, they didn't know who I was.
I leaned back slightly and looked at the ceiling, with my hands behind my head.
Five years.
This place was nice and simple. I could do this.
"Hey!" I heard someone calling again.
The voice didn't come from the front of the room, or the side. It came from behind me.
I sighed internally.
What is it now?
Another person mistaking me for Lightbane?
I turned in my seat, already preparing the polite correction and having an introduction in mind. I couldn't say: "Sorry, I'm the clone. You're searching for the original."
I smiled - or I tried to - and prepared myself again.
But I didn't say anything.
Instead, the words died before I could form them.
Three girls stood next to me in the aisle.
I hadn't expected to see them.
Not here, not ever, and never at this moment.
One tall, one black, and one furry.
An orc. A dark-elf. And a fox-girl.