My Darling, My Rival

Dedicated to @eclipsesgarden bc lets be for real...and also A. W. for loving Roman

My Darling, My Rival

Would you kill for the grant?

The question rang through my mind as I dipped my quill into the pot of ink and held it above the sheet of parchment. It felt like a dagger in my hand, a knife about to bring bloody death. The rustle of The Everglade Institute's library typically soothed me, but today, my pulse pounded in my ear.

"It's just an essay. You've written more before," I muttered, staring at the parchment as if the words circling through my head would appear. Anxiety coursed through my veins. Everything was being drowned out, except for the increasingly loud sound of my heart racing.

I looked up, and then hurriedly glanced when I met the eyes of him, the person I loathed who I had no doubt would take this grant right from under me without a second thought. He was the person who had been by my side, neck-in-neck throughout our years at the Institute. He found mirth in seeing me fall short of winning. Because he seemed to win again and again.

Roman Idris always remained on top.

He had murmured those words to me the day he had scored higher on the first competitive test we had and I had never forgotten them since.

Sometimes it seemed like the universe found joy in pitting us against each other. More than once, I had heard a professor utter, "Roman and Dahlia," though I was fervent in my attempts to dissuade them from pairing us. From the ages of ten, our first year at the academy to now, both of us seventeen though him one month older, we had bickered and argued. Yet, Professor Forte had called both of us to her office today and told us about the grant. She had looked at us with a piercing gaze, before asking, "Would you kill for the grant?"

Yes, I had uttered without hesitation, knowing that it would change my life forever if I won.

The Everglade Grant would cover all of the costs for the winner's final year, as well as pay off all past debt. I needed the Everglade Grant more than anything; the costs of going to the Institute were higher than any other academy. Long ago, when the gods had roamed the earth in human form, they had founded many of the academies. Each institute taught something different based on which god they were founded by: from dueling to astronomy, each student was sorted into a pathway once they left the primary schools. From age ten to eighteen, eight years of schooling, the academies crafted the minds of its students. Being founded by the goddess of power and shrewdness, the Everglade Institute provided the most prestigious education: wisdom was valued above all else and while we didn't duel with swords, we battled with our quills and mind.

Everyone in my family had attended the Everglade Institute.

It was my mother's dying wish for me to go.

But it wouldn't be worth it if I didn't make it one more year. The money my mother had left me hadn't been enough to go past year three and now the debt trailed me like a shadow.

Roman knew this--I had told him in a moment of utter weakness in our second year of rivalry. Roman Idris, with all of his family's money, didn't need the Grant. To him, it was just another prize to be won. I refused to let him steal it from underneath me like the many opportunities before.

I shook my head, clearing my thoughts. I couldn't afford the distraction, not when my parchment was so obviously blank and Roman was already on his fourth. Glancing up again, I watched as the flowing handwriting I had once complimented filled the page, the quill an instrument to his brain. It seemed he had no problems coming up with a concept for the question, "What memory during your time at the Institute is most significant?"