My Sister Is The Villainess

Wilderness Survival did not meet in a classroom.

It met outside, past the training fields, in a stretch of the Academy grounds that had been deliberately left wild, uneven ground and real trees and a firepit ringed with stones that had clearly seen use. No stone hall this time. No pentagram, no cages, no unsettling architecture. Just grass, mud, and the specific, honest cold of standing outdoors in autumn.

I found the rest of my year already gathering in a loose half-circle around the firepit, and it was there, elbowing my way toward Arthur, that I nearly walked straight into two people I did not recognize.

”Watch it,” said the taller one, though there was no real heat behind it.

He was broad through the shoulders in a way that looked earned rather than decorative, sleeves already rolled despite the cold, a satchel slung across his back that looked like it had actually been used for something before today. Practical. That was the word that came to mind. Everything about him looked built for being outside.

”Sorry,” I said. ”In a hurry to not be late for the one class that does not seem to want to kill me yet.”

That earned a short laugh from him and a longer, more considering look from the boy beside him, smaller, narrower, dark hair falling into eyes that missed absolutely nothing. He had the look of someone who read constantly and slept rarely.

”Ferguson,” the broad one said, offering a hand. ”And this is Desmond. He does not talk much until he decides you are worth talking to.”

”I talk plenty,” Desmond said, without looking up from whatever he was doing to the strap of his own bag. ”I simply do not waste it.”

Arthur appeared at my shoulder before I could respond, already grinning. ”You have met the other two, then. Ferguson can start a fire with wet wood and a personal grudge. Desmond can name every plant in this field and tell you which ones will kill you.”

”That is oddly specific,” I said.

”He asked,” Desmond said flatly.

Ferguson clapped a hand on my shoulder, hard enough to nearly stagger me. ”Rhys, was it? Sera Rhys’s brother?”

”Unfortunately for my reputation, yes.”

”Good reputation to have,” he said, entirely sincere, and I decided on the spot that I liked him.

The four of us settled into the half-circle together just as the instructor arrived, and I understood immediately why this class did not need a stone hall to make an impression.

He walked in from the tree line rather than any proper entrance, robe the color of old canvas, patched more than once, a satchel at each hip clinking faintly with glass against glass. In one hand he carried a small, stoppered bottle, its contents shifting oddly even while he held it still, a slow churn of something that looked like fog trapped behind glass. He did not seem to notice us watching. He was entirely occupied with the bottle, tilting it this way and that, muttering something under his breath that might have been a complaint or a recipe.

”Needs more marrow,” he said, to no one, to the bottle, to the general vicinity. ”Always needs more marrow. Everyone forgets the marrow.”

Nobody spoke. I glanced sideways at Arthur, who looked equally unsure whether we were supposed to be listening yet.

The man finally looked up, seemed mildly surprised to find an entire class assembled in front of him, and pocketed the bottle without any particular urgency.

”Merrow,” he said, by way of introduction, in the same tone he might have used to introduce the weather. ”Wilderness Survival.”

He crouched by the firepit, produced a knife from somewhere in his robe, and began, unhurried, to strip bark from a stick he had apparently been carrying this entire time, as though the lecture and the whittling were two entirely separate activities that simply happened to be occurring in the same body at the same time.

”Most of what they will teach you in this Academy,” Merrow said, eyes on the wood rather than on us, ”is how to fight. Fair enough. Fighting matters.” He flicked a curl of bark into the firepit. ”But you will spend a great deal more time surviving than fighting, once you are past a gate.”

’That is a genuinely unsettling way to open a lecture,’ I thought. ’I respect it.’

”Fire,” he said, holding up the half-whittled stick. ”Everyone assumes fire is simple. Strike flint, wave hands, done. In the Realm of Evil, fire is a decision, not a convenience. It keeps you warm. It also announces exactly where you are to anything nearby with eyes, and plenty of things out there do not need eyes at all.”

He set the stick down and picked up a second one, notched, and began working the two together with a patience that felt older than the lesson itself.

”You will learn to build a fire that can be killed in three seconds. You will learn to read wind before you ever light one, because smoke travels further than sound does, and sound already travels further than most of you would like to think.” He glanced up, briefly, and something in his expression made the whole half-circle straighten slightly. ”Water. Shelter. What is safe to eat and what only looks safe. None of it is glamorous. All of it will matter more than your affinity the first time you are lost, injured, and out of options.”

Desmond, beside me, had already produced a small notebook and was writing without seeming to look at the page at all.

Merrow set the sticks aside, wiped his hands on his robe, and reached back into his satchel, withdrawing a small collection of roots, dried berries, and what looked like a curled strip of mushroom, laying them out along a flat stone for the front row to inspect.

”You will get hungry out there. Hunger makes people stupid, and stupid people eat things that were never meant to be eaten.” He tapped the first berry, dark and unremarkable. ”Safe. Sweet, even. Grows near water, usually in clusters.” He tapped the one beside it, near-identical to my eye. ”Not safe. Same color, same shape, slightly glossier skin if you know to look. This one stops your heart in under an hour. The Realm of Evil is very fond of that particular trick, dressing the deadly thing as the harmless one.”

He moved down the row of specimens, unhurried, naming each in turn. Which roots could be boiled into something edible and which stayed toxic no matter how long you cooked them. Which mushrooms meant a filling meal and which meant a slow, ugly death two days later, once you had already convinced yourself you were fine. Which water sources looked clean and were not, and how to tell the difference by what refused to grow near the bank.

”When in doubt,” he said, ”do not eat it. A day of hunger has never killed anyone in this room. Curiosity has killed considerably more.” He set the specimens aside and produced two more leaves, nearly identical to each other, holding them up for us instead. ”Different matter, this pair. Not food. This one soothes a burn. This one will put you in a fever for three days if you mistake it for the first. Learn the difference before you need to know it, because the Realm of Evil will not pause to let you check twice.”

He walked the line as he spoke, handing samples down the row, murmuring quiet corrections when someone held one wrong or sniffed it the wrong way, and there was something almost soothing about the whole rhythm of it after two classes that had each nearly gotten me killed or humiliated. Merrow did not perform urgency. He simply spoke like a man who had survived a great deal by never mistaking calm for carelessness, and somehow that was more convincing than if he had shouted the entire lecture.

”Group formation,” he said, moving on, sketching a rough shape in the dirt with the tip of his knife. ”You will not survive alone out there, whatever your Talent Rank says about you. Someone watches the perimeter. Someone tracks water and food.” He tapped the center of his rough diagram. ”Someone keeps everyone else from doing something stupid when they are frightened, because everyone eventually does something stupid when they are frightened.”

Ferguson leaned toward me, voice low. ”That last one is definitely going to be you.”

”Excuse me.”

”You already tried to swing a morning star like a tennis racket. I heard.”

”That story spread fast.”

”Everything spreads fast here,” Desmond said, not looking up from his notes. ”Welcome to the Academy.”

”Why weren’t you in the class?”

”Because I did not want to,” he said with a chuckle.

’What a bastard.’

Merrow spent the rest of the lesson walking us through the actual mechanics of a controlled fire, hands guiding rather than lecturing, correcting grips and angles with small, unbothered adjustments, and by the end of it I had a small, smokeless flame cupped in my own hands that had taken considerably more effort than it had any right to. Around the half-circle, similar tiny fires flickered here and there, a scattering of first-years looking absurdly proud of themselves for having accomplished something that, technically, cavemen had already figured out.

’Small victories,’ I thought, watching mine gutter and catch again under my careful hands. ’I will take it.’

When the light had gone properly gold and low over the tree line, Merrow finally straightened, brushed off his robe, and looked over the class with the same mild, unhurried expression he had worn the entire lesson.

”Good enough for today,” he said. ”Put them out properly. A fire that dies on its own is a fire that was never truly under your control to begin with.”

He turned and walked back toward the tree line the same way he had come, bottle already back in hand, murmuring to himself about marrow again before he had gone more than a few steps, and the class began breaking apart around the firepit, smoke curling up into the darkening sky from a dozen small, carefully extinguished fires.