Page 11 of Is It Wrong to Escape My Fate? (Dealing With Fate #1)

Master Derrick, our family physician, was here at the magic academy, tending to my tiny wound. How did he know I was injured? How did he get through the door when the dorm was magically spelled to only let select people inside?

He finished casting the healing spell, and when I glanced at my finger, there wasn’t even a scar left, although I felt a little weaker.

“Side effect of healing spells,” Derrick explained when he noticed my lame expression. “The magic needs to use the patient’s vitality to repair the damage.”

“How did you know I was injured?” I voiced my thoughts as I leaned against Robin’s chest, who had taken a spot behind me on the floor. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry for the surprise, my lady,” Derrick smiled sweetly, which looked quite silly as he knelt beside me.

“The Crown Prince has called for me personally to teach future healers of the academy. The Lord and Lady permitted me to do so, since I promised I’ll watch over you while I’m here.

” He glanced at my knights, at Mia, then back at me.

“I had detection magic spelled on you that alerts me if you’re injured or in mortal pain. ”

I gaped at him. “Like, permanently spelled?”

“No, it’s more of an enchantment,” he admitted, gesturing to the bracelet Mia had been making me wear every day for the longest time. It was a gift from my mother, if I remembered correctly. Master Derrick lifted his arm to show a similar bracelet.

Oh, so it was a magical fitness tracker. Interesting and very useful. I wondered if it could also pick up my elevated heart rate and breathing, like earlier —

As if Derrick could read my mind, his cheeks flushed as he cleared his throat, prompting my knights to narrow their eyes at me. Nothing got past them, didn’t it?

“How did you manage that?” Reuben asked Derrick, folding his arms over his chest and standing menacingly over us. “You’ve only been with the household for a little over a year, and you already have the Lord and Lady’s trust to watch over Bea?”

Derrick brought himself up to match Reuben’s intimidating posture.

“I grew up in Baybluff. I'm one of the best healers in the Kingdom. The Lord sent me to this academy to study when it was discovered I had an affinity with Recovery magic. I owe my future to them. I believe you both know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Robin snaked his arms around my waist and held me tight, while Reuben’s eyes flashed down at me.

“Thanks for helping me, Master Derrick,” I spoke up to break off the weird energy of the room. “I have a question though. Is it possible I can be temporarily immune to fire?”

“You’re still on that?” Robin chuckled, nuzzling me with his cheek.

Derrick tilted his head. “Temporarily immune? It might be possible, although extremely rare. It could be your Unique if you had one.”

“I’m just glad there are extra eyes to keep watch on my lady,” Mia cheered, clapping her hands. “I feel like she’s a trouble magnet. There’s something strange about this school.”

“It’s not the school, but the people around her,” Reuben grumbled, glaring at me as if it was my fault all these strange events kept happening to me.

And to finally conclude my hypothesis, unfortunately I couldn’t have immunity to fire as my Unique, because I might already have one.

In this realm, aside from the concept of magic existing and defying the laws of physics, there was another miraculous thing that manifested among its dwellers — Uniques.

Not everyone had a Unique. Unlike magic, which had the potential to be learned by anyone and your only hurdle was the amount of mana inside you, a Unique was something you were born with.

It was called a Unique precisely because it was very likely you were the only one in the world with that special ability.

Others could have a variation of it, but the specific configurations were unique to you.

For example, a person could be born with the ability to move twice as fast as a human possibly could. Another person could have the “speed” Unique too, but maybe they would be 1.5 times faster, or three times faster. No Unique was exactly alike.

Triple Speed was Robin’s Unique, my brain supplied. That was how I discovered him and Reuben in the past before we took them in.

Because it was impossible to know what someone’s Unique was from the get-go, even by the person themselves, sometimes it took an entire lifetime for a person to realize they had a Unique after all. The circumstances, the environment, and the triggers could affect the discovery of one.

This was the reason that people who had Uniques discovered at a young age were invaluable to the Kingdom.

Part of the mission of the Inspectors was to search for people with Uniques.

And due to how our noble ancestors tended to procreate with one another, mixing magical blood and genes, it was almost guaranteed that a noble would have a Unique.

The only task left was figuring out what it could be, because it could literally be anything .

In the fictional world, I would equate it to someone who had superpowers.

And … well, I discovered my Unique by accident, but I had never told anyone.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure it was an actual Unique. Something weird happened, and in my prepubescent mind, nothing else made sense aside from my Unique manifesting. I could not retry because of the prerequisites and —

Now that I was older, wasn’t a recluse, and wasn’t the old me, I could technically try testing it again. I just didn’t know if I had the mental fortitude for it.

Even now … my brain actively didn’t want me to acknowledge it at all.

I didn’t need to confirm it to reach my goal, did I?

But it might be useful.

If it were as difficult as I imagined it in my head, then the cons outweighed the pros.

But think of what I could do if it were confirmed.

I’d sleep on it first and then think about it in the morning.

I rolled to a more comfortable spot on my bed in an attempt to sleep. Only a couple of days left before classes officially started, and the only lead I had was maybe it would be a good idea to have a chat with the Demon Lord about our dilemma.

Never mind that it was next to impossible to reach him, considering there was an entire war between us.

Tomorrow, it would be time to search for new leads, and that meant going through the library again. As long as green-haired librarians wouldn’t bother me, it should be fine.

My research this time would be about teleportation magic.

I already knew it took years to study teleportation and took even longer to master it. But what if I learn the principles and use it to figure out if it was possible to teleport to another realm?

It was a very, very long shot, but at least it could give me hope. If I knew it was possible, even if it took years to achieve …

Once again, the huge library building looked very ominous from both inside and out.

It only had two floors, but each floor was almost as high as two, the tall vertical space making up for the large number of bookshelves on both floors.

It almost looked like a maze. Good thing there was a well-kept management system for the books.

When I found the section for displacement magic, an even smaller section was dedicated to teleportation. Most of the books were thick and old, especially the one titled “Introduction to Teleportation and its Uses”.

I pulled it off the shelf, cradling it gently in my arms, before searching a space where I could read it thoroughly.

A nook beside the window caught my attention. Hidden from view, complete with a small table and cushioned chairs. Henceforth known as my spot, if I was going to be reading through a lot of teleportation books.

I was only a little halfway through the introduction of the book when someone tapped on the surface of the table where my book was.

“Good morning, Lady Beatrix.” My eyes traveled from the gloved hand to the unmistakable handsome face of Samuel Grimwald, looking down on me.

“Good morning, Lord Grimwald,” I muttered, a little irritated when I recalled this man trying to poach my knights. “Shouldn’t you be on the training grounds, stealing bodyguards from students?”

He actually laughed before leaning over closer to my face. “Contrary to popular belief, I don’t make it a habit to steal employed men. Although I could be very convincing.”

I stared, unimpressed. “What do you want with me, my lord?”

“I was simply trying to make friends. I might have overheard your knights saying how you like to spend your time at the library.”

My one quiet space gone because of this man. I glared at him to communicate my annoyance.

“Funnily enough, yesterday I didn’t find you here.” He looked at me as if he had me figured out, though I didn't say anything. “It seems you have other places you like to be.”

“I’m exploring the campus grounds as a new student,” I scoffed, now more annoyed that I had to explain myself when he had no business knowing it. “Did you just admit you were stalking me?”

“If I were stalking you, I’d know exactly where you were yesterday and what you were up to.” Why did he say those words as if he really knew what I did?

It was a funny image, though. Me, getting fucked by Amos behind a barn, while Lord Grimwald, esteemed Captain of the Army, watched from behind the trees like a voyeur.

He cleared his throat, and I glanced back at him from where my eyes had drifted off to. “I’m here to confirm you do spend your free time at the library, reading about …” His red eyes focused on the book. “Teleportation. That seems too advanced for a first year.”

“Well, I plan to specialize in it,” I blathered, even though I really wasn’t thinking about it. Now that I said it out loud, it felt right that this would be my specialty.

Didn’t it?

Lord Grimwald studied me with more interest, but also with a stern look on his face. “The Kingdom does need more teleport mages. Very admirable, Lady Beatrix.”

I never planned to help the Kingdom with whatever I learned with teleportation. I didn’t care to say it to him.

“Thank you, my lord,” I spoke with complete disinterest. “If you’ll excuse me, I plan to focus on my reading like a good student.” I went back to my book, but I couldn’t completely focus on it until he left, which took longer than I wanted.

My mind was reeling by lunchtime. When I kept rereading the last paragraph seven times, I knew I’d make no progress.

I returned the book to the shelves instead of borrowing it because I doubted I’d be able to read in my dorm with three people hovering over me. Finding the time to go to the library when classes started seemed more practical.

Mia and my bodyguards were meeting me at the dining hall for lunch, but was it a wonder when I was almost there and someone interrupted me again?

“Ela,” Elias stood straight from where he was leaning against a building wall. “You’re alone?” He looked over my shoulders like he expected my bodyguards to appear.

I froze in my spot. I hadn’t seen him since we arrived at Aerahelm, and I hadn’t really tried looking for him. Did that make me a bad friend?

Didn’t he hate me? I thought he only took advantage of my entourage so he could get here safely. As was his right. I didn’t think my apology would be enough for my transgression against him.

The transgression that I couldn’t fucking remember. Or, more accurately, that my brain actively refused to remember. Was it that embarrassing? Horrifying? Life-altering?

“I’m sorry, Eli,” I blurted out, clasping my hands together. “For what happened all those years ago. I swear I won’t do it again. I’m trying to be a better person.”

I was an idiot, apologizing for something I couldn’t even remember. And I felt like Eli knew it too, because he looked at me funny like I was crazy, before he had a stupid grin on his face.

“Ela, I already forgave you a long time ago. I forgave you on the spot when it happened.” He clutched my shoulders as he stepped closer to me. “We were stupid teenagers. It shouldn’t even be brought up anymore. So why …?”

Before I could answer, his eyes lit up in understanding. “You thought I’m still mad at you?” He stepped even closer as he buried his face in my hair. “All these years, you think I could get angry at you for that long?”

“But you disappeared as soon as we arrived,” was my lame explanation, pouting a little.

“I didn’t want to bother you,” he mumbled into my hair, nuzzling it. “If I had known you’d feel this way, I wouldn’t have left.” He stepped away, smiling. “I thought you hated me. ”

My eyes rounded in shock. “Why would I hate you?”

He chuckled, biting his lip. “Let’s see. After what happened, you ran away from your own debutante ball, and never showed yourself at any social gatherings again? You were a recluse in your own home. By choice. I thought it was my fault, and I couldn’t see you because you refused any visitors.”

Oh, my god. What the hell was I thinking? Help me out here, brain!

Brain?

If my brain didn’t want to help me, then I had no choice but to be truthful. Somewhat.

“The years I spent as a recluse are very fuzzy in my head,” I admitted as I fiddled with the sleeves of my dress. “Honestly, my whole life seems like a blur in my mind. It’s like I was reborn these past few weeks.”

Elias stared at me like I grew a second head. Which, unironically, was kind of what was happening to me.

“I’ve heard of this before,” he exclaimed with renewed energy. “Dissociative memory.” He kissed the top of my head, catching me by surprise. “It’s okay, Ela. I also heard it’s temporary. You’ll recall your memories overtime and …”

“My lady?” I heard Robin’s voice from somewhere, and standing toward the dining hall were my twin knights and Mia. They had horrified looks on their faces, and there was only one explanation — they had heard what I said to Elias.

At least that was one worry out of the way, right?