Alex almost laughed when she saw the message. The whole situation seemed so hard for her to understand now. She wasn’t concerned with a gnome picking on her, not anymore. There were orcs who wanted her dead, an army at the Dark One’s orders. What were bullies compared to that?
For a moment, Alex thought about sending her parents a message to let them know what had happened over the last twenty-four hours. She thought more about it and decided it wasn’t a good idea. Even she didn’t quite understand what had happened over the last day.
There had been lunch, a joust, and then an invasion by orcs and a dark wizard. That wasn’t something you sent in a casual message.
Instead, Alex pulled up her HUD visor and said, “Hey, Mom! Hey, Dad! I just got your message. Things have been going a lot better. That bully I was talking about? We’re not friends, but we also don’t hate each other anymore. And I have a really cool roommate. Also, there’s a hot dark elf. Hope everything is going well. I love and miss you guys.”
Alex ended the recording and sent the message. That was probably the most her parents were going to be able to deal with. She did say there was a hot elf.
Next was getting out of bed and getting ready for the funeral, the real part of the day. Jollies still hadn’t come back from breakfast so Alex had the room all to herself. It didn’t matter, though. She didn’t feel like enjoying her solitude.
The door opened, and Jollies fluttered into the room. She went straight to her bed and laid down. “Hey, dude, everything okay?” Alex asked.
Jollies rolled over and said, “Breakfast was hard. There were a lot of people missing.”
That was one of the reasons Alex hadn’t wanted to go to breakfast. She didn’t want to know the extent of how many cadets had been lost during the battle. It was ultimately unavoidable, but seeing it would hurt.
Jollies sat up and wiped tears from her eyes. “Almost time to get going, right?” she asked.
Alex came over to Jollies’ bed and rested her hand next to it, palm open, for the pixie to climb onto if she wanted. “Yeah, it’s getting to be about that time.”
The funeral took place in the Great Hall. The Wasp’s Nest had repaired itself, and It looked like nothing had happened. But the cadets knew.
Caskets were lined up before a podium, each of them open, each of them honored.
Myrddin stood behind the podium, his face grim and settled. The rest of the instructors sat behind him, all of them wearing black. Toppinir and Roy sat close to Myrddin, looking uncomfortable.
Alex filed into the hall with the rest of the cadets, trying to ignore how few there were now. She remembered it had almost been impossible to count how many cadets there were in the mess hall. Now she could put them all in her dorm room.
It felt like a defeat to see how many cadets she hadn’t saved. The hall felt bare, empty of souls.
At the front of the hall, Myrddin stood. He cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice was magically amplified to a soft boom, a resting thunder in the ears of the attendees. “Today we are gathered to honor those who have fallen.”
“The simple reality of what we face is death. There is no easy way to say this. Each and every one of us must face it. That being said, there are noble deaths, and there are cowardly deaths. Those who rest here today went down the noble path. They died in service to the realms. They died trying to keep the Dark One from destroying our lives.”
“I know this doesn’t make it easier for any of you. These were your friends, your family, and now they are gone. There is nothing I can say that will take away your pain, and I will not try to. The simple truth is, we were attacked. For seemingly no reason, the Dark One struck the Nest. Why? Intel? To cull our ranks? Maybe, but we believe the Dark One saw an opportunity to strike fear into our hearts, an opportunity to dull our resolve. New magics and technology are in place to prevent this from happening again. Security has been increased. We will not be caught off-guard again.”
Myrddin hung his head for a second as he gathered his words. “I have asked a great deal from all of you. I understand that, and I want you to know I understand. None of you has to be here. I will not hold you prisoner to agreements made previously. Now that you have seen war, seen loss…”
Myrddin’s voice cracked, and he stepped away from the podium. Roy stood up and took Myrddin’s place. “I think what Myrddin is trying to say is that we ain’t asking y’all to die. None of us are. What happened was terrible. We didn’t see it coming. I wish we had, and honestly, these deaths are on our heads.”
Toppinir nodded as Myrddin took a seat next to him. “We all lost friends,” Roy continued. “Those friends died heroes. That don’t make it any easier, though. Not at all. So, we’re here to honor them. Here to honor their sacrifices, and those who stay will make sure those sacrifices were not made in vain.”
Roy sat back down, and Toppinir stood and walked to the podium. “Now we will allow a viewing of the departed. Please feel free to pay your respects,” he said softly before sitting back down.
It took a while for the cadets to rise from their seats and approach the coffins at the front of the hall. Most of the cadets were teenagers, and it was the first time they had been confronted with death. Alex was the first amongst them. She stood and marched straight to the
