Morningstar
Chapter XXXIX: Removing Advantages

Icarus is out of his room in less than five minutes. He didn’t want to leave Phoenix like this. He wanted to spend the morning with her before heading to practice. He wanted to treat her right. He wanted to hold her for a while, kiss her as many times as he wanted, make her breakfast, and whatever else came to his mind.

To Icarus surprise, Demetrio waits for him outside of the building. “It took you a while,” Demetrio lies. Icarus doesn’t wait for him, so he follows him. “How was yesterday’s trial?”

“People died,” Icarus doesn’t add anything more.

“Anyone from your team?” Demetrio asks. Icarus shakes his head. “Then be glad. People were going to die anyway.”

“What does Morning want?” Icarus switches the subject.

“I don’t know,” he says. “He is different from Midnight. I mean, they are all mysterious but at least Midnight used to tell us everything in one go. He didn’t feel the need to be dramatic.”

Icarus wants to ask who survived the third trial, but he doesn’t want him to know that there’s an information that he hasn’t yet received. Demetrio thinks that Icarus knows everything about everyone, which he does, but he has his limits.

“Anyway, I knew that you were a player,” Demetrio says. Icarus wants to answer, but he doesn’t. His rogue character is around being mysterious. He only hopes that he doesn’t know about Phoenix. “I didn’t know that you and Quin used to be something.”

“We weren’t,” Icarus says, glad that he doesn’t know about Phoenix.

“Oh, but she said you were.”

Typical of her to try to play with Icarus’s feelings. “She lies.”

“But good for you,” he says. “I thought that you liked to be begged by women, but it is not that. You just aim high and bid your time to take the best woman in the game. I tried to get Quin in my bed, but she didn’t want to. If I knew that it was because you had already done her, I wouldn’t have even tried.”

Icarus doesn’t answer. Demetrio opens his mouth again, but Icarus interrupts him. “If you are trying to get into my nerves, it won’t happen.”

“I just wanted to hear from you how Quin was,” Demetrio says, “how much did she move in bed.”

Icarus accelerates his pace. Demetrio wants him to remember the times when he and Quin were students and when they worked together, but he won’t. He doesn’t think about that. He has a life now, a life better than he had before. He has people that care about him in Morningstar and back home.

They arrive to the yellow cathedral. Icarus walks up the steps, followed by Demetrio. Two hooded figures open the wide doors for them. Inside, a round table has been placed. “It is about time,” Quin says, when they see them enter.

Icarus knew that she was going to survive the trial. Beside her sits Signe, who is still wearing his red cape. A couple of seats away and next to Morning, Kemba stares at the door. Of all the ten mentors, only five survived: Quin, Signe, Demetrio, Kemba, and Icarus. Icarus sits beside Kemba and Demetrio sits next to him.

“Well, now that you are all here, we can begin,” Morning says. “First of, congratulations on being the finalits. You all fought against fifteen other champions from my siblings’ academies and survived the obstacles. As you know, the fourth trial has been the same on every generation of students.”

“The same one that we faced back when we were students?” Signe asks.

“Precisely,” Morning answers.

Icarus remembers his fourth trial. He wasn’t supposed to fight the other five remaining teams from Nightlight. They were all teammates on the trial. They were placed at a location where the trial took places. Every academy placed their own five remaining teams and it was a genocide. Every team had to kill everyone until three teams, or sixty students, remained from each academy.

He doesn’t want to remember the details. He saw so much blood. He saw many of the people he knew die. He got a few of his scars there. Some of those scars were made by saving people.

“This time, we have one situation,” Morning continues. “Every fifteen years, we use the same location for the trial. I am afraid that we will not be able to use that location this year.”

Icarus doesn’t react. He tries to keep his face neutral, even though the wheels of his mind are spinning. He knows Morning and Night. They wouldn’t decide to switch the location of the final trial without a reason. There is a plan involved, a plan that takes all of the Times’ interests.

“What happened to the location?” Kemba asks.

“There was a forest fire,” Morning says.

Icarus knows that that is a cheap excuse. The typical location for the final trial was a place with swamps, forests, mountains, caves, plains, rivers, and beaches. It was a place where every student could have their advantages of their environments. If there was a fire, they would have already planted new trees. What is the Times planning?

“We will be moving the trial to a new location,” Morning says, “and we will be changing the rules to fit the new environment.”

Demetrio straightens his back. That changes the whole trial and the strategies that all of the mentors used. Icarus’s strategy was to play safe. His only goal was to take care of every member of his team and keep them alive. His strategy consisted on not facing strong opponents like Demetrio and Quin, in order to keep his students safe. Now that the trial has been changed, his team could be facing anyone.

“That’s not fair,” Demetrio says. “We have used different strategies. We have trained our teams in such a specific way, hoping to not face ourselves. Changing the last trial, the only trial that we are sure to know every detail, is a disadvantage for us.”

“I agree,” Quin says. “We all agree. This is the only advantage that we have. You shouldn’t remove that from us.”

“If what you are wondering is that you will face each other, I would assure you that you won’t.” Morning’s expression doesn’t change.

Icarus feels the tension on the room getting relieved. “What are the new rules then?” Signe asks. “I am not asking for me, because I do not need to know, but for my fellow mentors.”

“I won’t be telling you the rules,” Morning says. “But I will tell them soon.”

“You depraved us from our only advantage,” Kemba says.

“You forget that these are the Times’ trials,” Morning says. “These are our academies and our students. You are all bind by a contract, which doesn’t establish that I need to tell you the rules of the trials beforehand.”

“But it is stablished in the contracts that you must provide us with at least one clue,” Quin says.

“And I already did,” Morning says. “You are not facing each other at the trial.”

Demetrio leans back on the chair again. “He is right. He got us there.”

“Then where is this taking place?” Signe asks.

“Patience,” Morning says. “The location will not be revealed now.”

“Then why did you bring us here?” Kemba asks as she uses a finger to twirl the end of her black hair. “If you just wanted to tell us that the trial was changed, you could have sent Sunny or some of the creepy cloaked followers of yours to tells us that.”

Morning eyes Kemba. “That could be treated as a disrespect, Miss Armana. What would Lord Dawn say if she hears something like that coming from you?”

“I do not know because she wouldn’t hear it,” Kemba says. Icarus tries to have empathy towards Morning. Everyone that is in there didn’t attend Morningstar, which means that they do not prefer Morning over any one of the Times. They have been taught to believe blindly on the lord of their academy. But Icarus cannot feel empathy nor sympathy for him.

“You might prefer Lord Dawn over myself, but you still ended up being a mentor for my academy.”

“A job is a job,” Kemba simply answers.

Morning nods at a slow pace before drifting his eyes away from her. “Cancel your plans for today. You all, with your team, are going to pack. We’ll be leaving at midday.”

“What?” Signe asks.

“We won’t have any more time to train?” Demetrio asks.

“Isn’t the trial in a week?” Quin asks.

“I do not need to give any explications,” Morning says. He stares at each one, but he stops at Icarus. “You’ve been quite silent, Mr. Hallow. Do you have something to say?”

Icarus has been hearing the whole conversation. He’s been checking every single unspoken word from Morning. He is trying to replace out what his plans are, what’s the real reason for the change of the trial.

He is telling them to pack. He is going to lead them to where the trial is taking place. If the trial is in a week, why would he push them to begin traveling today? If the destination is someplace far, they would take a ship and travel the ocean. They would not need a week to travel. He would not force them to walk to their destination. It wouldn’t make sense to waste many days on walking when they could be used for training. There has to be another reason.

Icarus snaps awake. “The trial is not happening in a week,” he says. “The trial has been moved earlier.”

Morning’s mouth curves. “Attentive as usual. You are right, Mr. Hallow. The final trial will begin in three days.”