bChapter 108 /b

    Valencia

    For the next few days, I didn’t bother going to the castle. There was no use waking up to empty rooms and staring bat /bthe walls either way.

    Killian was busy doing whatever had caught his interest and had not returned to sleep in his bed for days already.

    Plus I had informed Mary that I was well and staying in the temple quarters for a while. My absence had gone unnoticed, it seemed, coz she had not asked me to return to the castle rooms at the behest of her prince.

    Well, if he could be busy, so could I.

    And the apothecary was lots more interesting than the dull work Nina had assigned me to. It was good riddance that I didn’t have to look at her sulky face all day long.

    Amara was strict, but she wasn’t unnecessarily bossy like Nina. She only didn’t like mistakes because they could cost a patient his or her life.

    In the few days that I started working here, I had alreadypleted all the work Amara had assigned to us.

    With the help of Sarah, of course.

    She wasn’t pushing me away, but she would also not try to really talk to me or spend time with me unless I asked.

    And it was also driving me mad. I had just one good friend, and had hurt her.

    So I would try to do little things for her like helping her with difficult trantions, carrying her stuff around when her hands were full.

    She would smile asionally but I saw her staring at an adjacent table far more in the past few days.

    “Don’t crush the root too hard. We need the extract fresh. If you grind it into a paste its of no use to us”

    I heard the girl Sarah had been observing keenly. She was barely four feet in height but was plump and had beady eyes. She also didn’t look very friendly to me. But for some reason, the other girl who was slightly taller but also skinnier stuck

    to her.

    She and the frail, shaking girl beside her were wearing beige colored gowns. I took it that they were both Clerics.

    “Sorry, I just get a little nervous,” The other girl responded. I could see her hand shaking a little as she held the mortar and pestle in her hand while staring at a rather bulbous root lying in ifront /iof her.

    “Rx, you can do this. You are a Cleric. This is a cakewalk for youi./ii” /iThe previous girl encouraged her friend, who sighed.

    “Yes, but I am not Cleric Abby, even Elder Amara sings high praises of you” the nervous girl dabbed the thin sheen bof /bsweat on her forehead.

    Okay, now I knew why Chloe was sucking up to Abby. She wanted to be a schr and a teacher’s pet like Abby, bprobably /b

    112

    b12:32 /bFrib, /bb29 /bbAug /b

    Abby gave a smug look at our table and then lowered her voice, but not so much that we wouldn’t hear.

    “You didn’t waste five years trying to pass your Cleric exam, did you now, Chloe? You are going to be fine.”

    Chloe stole a nce at Sarah and then raised her mortar to crush the root in front of her. Meanwhile, Sarah looked baway /bfrom them and caught me staring at her.

    “What?” She asked defensively.

    “You know those girls?” I asked, dipping my head in their direction, and she gave me a resigned look.

    “I used to. They were in my batch. We used to hang out together,” Sarah cast one gloomy look at them.

    Okay, so was this the reason for her sadness? Constantly seeing her batch mates around who are now seniors to her and look down at her?

    I had not actively noticed them doing anything to her but maybe they threw her smug looks every now and then, making her awkward.

    “Ignore them. We will ace the exams together. Whenever they are going to be held.”

    Sarah popped a lid open of a ss bottle a bit too harshly at Abby’sment and it flew out of her hands,nding on the other girls‘ table and knocking off something that they were brewing in a small bowl.

    “Argh!” Abby let out a panicked scream while Chloe dashed forward to lift the bowl up but it burned her fingers because it was hot.

    “Careful!” Sarah ran forward to help them and put on gloves to lift the bowl up and away from them both.

    She deposited it back on the burner and offered a helping hand to Abby, who scowled at her.

    “How low can you stoop, Sarah? First you knowingly try to muddle my work and thene running forward to offer a helping hand.”

    Sarah shook her head. “No, no, that was a mistake.”

    Chloe offered her unharmed hand to Abby, who took it and tugged at it a bit too hard, which almost made the frail girl trip and lose her bnce.

    “I know what you are doing, Sarah. I know what

    iu /ialways do.” Abby said, pping her hand on the table hard.

    The sound echoed through the cave, and a few others looked up to see what was going on.

    “I didn’t do anything,” Sarah tried to exin, but Abby wasn’t in the mood to listen.

    “I saw the way you threw that lid on my beat.

    ito /ithrow it down. And you

    seeded.”

    I couldn’t take it anymore and stepped in to defend my friend.

    “Look, she did it identally. She wasn’t trying to sabotage your experiment, whatever you are doing.” I offered, bbut /bbAbby /bgritted her teeth,

    She raised her short but stub like fingers and pointed the index finger at me.

    “What do you know about working in the apothecary or crafting elixirs that give wounded a shot at regr life bagain/b?” bShe /blooked at me with contempt and gave me a quick once over,

    “Bloody Novice” She judged me based on the white robe I was wearing, and both Sarah and Chloe looked at her in shock.

    Swearing in the cave was incredibly frowned upon. But it looked like Abby didn’t give a damn about it.

    Though when I looked around, I realized it was just the four of us who could have heard her. The rest had returned to their works, ignoring our little skirmish.

    “Yeah, I might be a Novice but I am better at being a person in general, a decent human being, you know.” I couldn’t resist olliit. /li/ol

    She was proud and might have achieved a higher level, but that was no reason to drag others down.

    “What are you doing?” Sarah tried to push me aside, though the two girls still kept watching us.

    “She was being obnoxious and rude for no reason to you. I was just showing her a mirror,” I argued, but Sarah hissed.

    “Dont fight for me. I can fight for myself very well”

    Sarah said, making Abby chuckle.

    “What is wrong with you? I try to extend an olive branch to you but you keep trampling over it with your high heels every time.”

    Sarah hissed through her teeth.

    “I am a loser, okay. Nobody wants to be my friend because I can’t pass a stupid exam even after five tries. And I desperately clung to you, but turns out that you are not just an average girl who came here to be a Novice like me. iNo/i, you are the fudging Blessed One who has the hottest prince wrapped around her little finger, so excuse me for not knowing how to be extraordinary like you all.”

    Sarahshed out at me and then disappeared down the corridor.

    AD

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