1

City of Aldaene, Paendrage Empire

Continent of Miranda

Basar Vad 14, Aerath Samvat 1302

Two months later, Aldaene the capital, was flooded with twelve hundred boys and girls, all seventeen of age, who had travelled from every corner of the seven continents to sit a single examination in the Grand Court of Aethoria Central University. Held each year at the end of summer, two days before the academic year began.

Aethoria welcomed all with confidence in their talent and sent most of them away with that confidence in broken pieces, for it admitted only three hundred students each year.

“Aethoria Academia.” Prince Rhovyn Aestlae of Ashenvale drew rein the moment the towering gate came into view.

“It is... so vast and so magnificent.” Saelis Erynae Sinhalaese of Kakinara halted beside him.

Four academy buildings of different stone, joined by stairways and bridges that climbed the rock in every direction, all of it vast, deliberate, and old in a way Ashenvale’s leaning tower had never been.

“I feel strangely small; this university is older than Ashenvale.” Rhovyn dismounted and stretched his back.

“Older than Vialthor empire.” Erynae leapt down with ease.

“The mention of Vialthor brings the war to mind.” Rhovyn looked at her. “Do you suppose we shall see a Draconian here? The university permits anyone in Myris to sit the entrance examination, provided they possess the required merit from their primary academy.”

Erynae turned to him. “I heard they burned the villages along our border, and so the Khorvas' wiped them out. Carrasova Bridge now lies under Vialthor’s passing domination,” she glanced back towards the gate. “I do not imagine they would permit even a single Draconian to pass.”

“Aethoria Academia.” Ryska read it as she drew her horse to a halt just behind Erynae’s, dismounted, and removed the veiled hat that had hidden her eyes these past two months. Sunlight caught in her golden irises. She looked once more at the name above the gate and tightened her hold upon the document Vorath had given her. "We meet at last, Aethoria."

Her eyes stayed on academy as she walked past Erynae and she slipped off her coat on as her feet touched the stairs, the scales she'd been born with, the ones she had kept hidden for three fortnights caught the sun and came alive along her neck and forearms.

She thought of Vorath's warning, hide until the Charter's protection was hers. A fortnight of brown eyes, a fortnight of safety borrowed from a dying man's magic, and then Viana's border had fallen behind her and taken the disguise with it.

Six weeks she had crossed Myris as Koina, a name with no house and no history, because Ryska Aen had nothing left to protect but a name, and even that she had not dared to spend.

She was done spending caution instead of herself.

Let them look. She had trained in the Collegium since before she could tie her own boots, had bled for skill that no gate-guard's stare could take from her. If Aethoria wanted to see a Draconian, it would see the best one it had ever admitted, not a girl who came crawling in as Koina, but Ryska Aen, who intended to top the examination that was about to decide the rest of her life.

Grief could wait. It had waited two months already; it could wait one more evening.

Those before her and behind her alike turned to stare as Ryska made her way to the Aelthara Archery Academy's registration desk and spoke her name aloud.

“Ryska Aen, Solari, Viana.”

The wind changed, eyes stared at her amber scales and whispers rippled outward from the registration desk across courtyard.

A Draconian, here...

did you see the scales...

Solari, she said Solari...

Erynae glanced at Rhovyn and he glanced back at her, the very thing they'd wondered aloud at the gate not a minute before, answered now standing right in front of them.

The registrar behind the desk took the document Ryska held out, checked the seal, the name, the grades from primary university, then set it aside and began writing out her hall card. "Ryska Aen," he read aloud as he wrote, slid the finished card across the desk toward her and reached for another card. "Next."

Most attention shifted back to registration, though many still cast glances her way in passing. From the university’s history and the supposed severity of its examinations to the Draconian girl's presence, the topic of gossip changed quickly. People looked at her and whispered amongst themselves, as she crossed to the waiting area.

Ryska found a patch of grass still damp from the morning and sat. She pulled the gold band given with the hall card and turned it over once in her fingers before trying to loop it around her wrist.

She caught the clasp between two fingers, drew it taut, and lost it again the moment she reached for the pin, twice and whispers from the registration desk still hung somewhere behind her, she wasn’t about to look up and give anyone the satisfaction of thinking she cared about their opinions.

"Need a hand?"

She looked up anyway and found an elf girl, she folded herself down onto the grass beside her and before Ryska could answer, her slim fingers had already taken the band from her palm and were working the clasp shut around her wrist.

Ryska stared at her, she'd expected stares today, whispers, even insults but this? She had not expected someone to simply sit down.

"I'm Faelen Sinae of Sylvaria," said Faelen. "You're Ryska, I was behind you in line," she extended her wrist. "Help me?" she gave the loose band a small shake.

A smile she hadn't planned on appeared on her face, she took the band and began working the clasp closed around Faelen's wrist.

“The Draconian girl looks exactly as the books say they do,” Rhovyn's eyes stayed at her scales.

“Aye," Erynae gazed at Ryska for a moment before sending a horseman to arrange his stay for two days.

Although she was certain she didn’t need to return home and confident in her merit and chances of making it into the top three hundred, her father and mother had insisted the horseman remain until she was officially selected.

"Do you think she has vertically pupiled golden eyes too?" Rhovyn’s mind began to drift back to the details from the book The Nine of Myris. He had read it so many times that he could easily recall everything about all nine species of the world.

"Are you suggesting that your favorite book, was lying?" Erynae teased with a playful glint before glancing toward the Solmaere registration desk. "Come on, let’s get registered and then head back to the inn for breakfast."

Rhovyn's gaze lingered a moment longer on the Draconian girl before Erynae tugged him toward the Solmaere desk. He tried to imagine her face, golden eyes, the book said. Vertically pupiled, like a cat's, like a serpent's, every account agreed on that much but he had nothing to hang it on, no face to fit those eyes into.

He tried anyway, and found himself only guessing, sharp-featured perhaps, something to match the way she'd said her name while half the courtyard stared. He wondered whether eyes like that would look fierce on her, or whether...

"Rhovyn." Erynae stared at him with hand on her hip. "The desk isn't going to register itself."

"Coming," he shook himself loose from the thought and followed, though some small part of him kept turning it over.

What she actually looked like? What her eyes looked like up closely, when they weren't half a courtyard away.