Chapter 13: Personal Space

Let me tell you what I read last night, lying in the grass while Lily pointed at clouds.

The next major arc of The Heroine’s Heart was the Spirit Forest Exam. Every first-year gets marched into the forest with an assigned partner and has to come out with a Spirit Contract. In the original novel, Lily gets paired with Sir Perrin Alderltoft, human golden retriever, and the two of them nearly die to a mid-boss the forest had no business containing. They survive and Lily walks out with the strongest Spirit Contract in her class, while Perrin walks out with a lifetime subscription to her side.

Harem member number three, secured through the time-honored romantic tradition of almost bleeding out together.

That’s what I read. That’s the beat I have to protect.

[Okay... Should be doable. Lily plus Perrin, almost die, spirit acquired. I don’t even have to do anything, the exam pairs them automatically. This one pretty much runs on rails.]

---

"The Spirit Forest Exam," Professor Sabine announced from the front of the lecture hall, "is in two weeks."

The room buzzed.

"Every first-year enters. You will remain in the forest until you have formed a Spirit Contract. Those who fail to form one wash out of the academy. That said, you will not be entering alone. Each student is assigned one partner. Partners are determined by mana-resonance, measured pair by pair. The chart will be posted within a few days."

A hand went up.

"Professor, can we pick our-"

"No."

The hand went back down.

"Resonance pairing exists for your survival. The forest responds to compatible mana. An incompatible pair attracts predators. A compatible pair attracts spirits." She swept her chalk across the board, sketching two overlapping circles. "Resonance is not random. It is shaped by proximity, by shared mana exposure, by combat synchronization, and by time spent in one another’s company."

[... Wait a minute.]

"The longer two mages train, eat, and live alongside each other," Sabine continued, "the more their mana signatures align."

[Wait. Wait wait wait!]

Train, eat, and live alongside.

I ran the tape of my last week. Sword lessons every afternoon, my hands over her hands. Every meal side by side. Same room, eight feet apart, seven nights running. Fucking cloud-watching???

I had accidentally spent seven consecutive days marinating in the female lead’s mana signature.

[FUUUUCK!]

A vision came to me.

The Calamity Queen, twenty feet tall, standing on the smoking ruin of the continent, looking down at me with contempt.

"Let me get this straight," she’d say. "My daughter needed a knight, and instead she got a fox with a big rack, because you couldn’t stay away from her for two minutes? Die, worm!"

And then she’d step on me and that would be that.

"Kohaku?" Lily whispered from the seat beside me, we sat together in every class, by the way. "Are you okay? You’ve gone all pale."

"... Peachy," I whispered back, sweating through my uniform.

[Okay. Two weeks. Resonance is built by time together, which means it can be diluted by time apart. Operation: Personal Space starts NOW.]

And just like that, I had one goal:

Ignore the female lead!

---

Operation: Personal Space was a disaster from the start.

Hour one, lunch.

Lily sat down across from me with her tray. I picked up my tray, announced "I’m gonna sit over there," pointed at a distant table, and relocated. She followed me, assuming it was a seating upgrade. We ate together at the new table.

Resonance: increased.

Hour three, library.

I told her I needed to study alone, real serious fox business. She said okay, and took the table behind mine so she wouldn’t disturb me. I could hear her turning pages. Her mana was probably soaking into me through the chair.

Resonance: increased.

Hour five, training yard.

I cancelled our afternoon lesson. Verbatim: "Sugar, you’ve got the fundamentals. You should practice solo from now on, it builds independence." Then I stood at the edge of the yard for forty minutes watching her drill so I could make sure her back foot didn’t drift. She caught me watching and waved. I waved back before my brain could stop my arm.

Resonance: presumably increased.

Hour six, I made it direct.

I found her in the corridor and said:

"Hey, Lily, listen. I think we should spend some time apart."

She blinked.

"Apart?"

"Apart. You and me. Less... us." I gestured at the space between our bodies, which was insufficient. "It’s healthy! Absence, hearts, fondness, all that. Starting immediately."

"Oh," said Lily. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No! God, no. It’s not you, it’s mana."

"It’s... what?"

[... Come to think of it, I don’t really have a good reason for our mana to not pair together, without telling her about what her mom’s gonna get up to when she comes back.]

"It’s nothing. Just, space. Okay? Space." And I turned and walked away, saving the world.

I stood in the corridor feeling like I’d kicked a golden retriever in front of its vet.

[The world, Kohaku. You’re doing it for the world.]

---

{Marisol Vantecca}

The east garden salon met every week, weather permitting.

I poured for the Countess Delvaux’s daughter first, because her mother outranked everyone at the table, then for the Herevane twins, then the rest by pedigree.

"Marisol, darling, this blend is amazing."

"Sun-cured jasmine from the Dominion trade," I said. "Papa imports it."

The conversation rolled on, and for two hours I conducted it, looking for information. Who was courting whom, whose engagement was wobbling, which second son had gambled himself into the church. I fed the lines and steered the laughter.

It was, in every observable way, a triumph.

Then it ended, and the two departing countess-daughters lingered by the gate, just past the hedge, where sound carries and they knew it.

"Lovely spread, though. The Vanteccas do try."

"Mm. The title’s barely three generations deep, you know. You can smell the ink."

I held my smile until the gate clicked shut, then held it a moment longer just in case. Then I went inside, up to my room, sat at my vanity, and practiced next week’s laugh in the mirror until it sounded like old money.

Three generations, as if any of them could name their own great-grandmothers.

And the worst part, the genuinely unforgivable part? Nobody was even gossiping about the salon this year. The academy had two topics:

The scholarship commoner whose appraisal broke the crystal, and...

My eyes narrowed. Right, the fox that Serena Frostfall had personally decided to hate. A mutt and a charity case. That’s who owned the year I’d spent a childhood preparing for.

I heard it in the cafeteria two days later.

I was passing behind the fox herself, who was hunched over an untouched lunch, muttering into her hands.

"...just need to get Lily paired off and dump the whole thing on him, then I’m out..."

I stopped dead.

[What?]

Get Lily paired off?

Dump the whole thing on him?

I walked on, autopilot, pulse loud, translating.

She’s attached herself to the year’s most talked-about commoner. She’s steering her toward some him, some boy, obviously a titled one. She hands the girl off, banks the connection to a noble house, and exits clean before anyone tallies what she gained.

The scholarship mutt was social climbing, coldly, strategically, using her own roommate to do it!

[She... She’s like me.]

I smiled.

The story of the year had gotten much more interesting all of a sudden.