4

“Narrow mountain pass...” he began writing after pausing a moment to think.

Ryska read the paper through three times before she set quill to page. She wrote as she shot, with certainty. The candidate two seats to her left was scribbling at speed; she did not look at him, but she could hear the quick movement of his pen. For the fourth question she chose city warfare and filled four pages with her answer.

Erynae, seated five places ahead of her, chose city warfare as well and wrote without pause.

Bram scratched his head rather more than was necessary. He knew the answer to the fourth question well enough; the difficulty was that the examination required him to write it and the writing was not coming as the understanding had. The distance between those two things was, by his reckoning, about four paragraphs wide, and the bell was going to ring eventually.

It rang at the end of the second hour. The papers were collected, and the hall emptied slowly after Amaeren and invigilators left.

“I knew most of it,” Bram scratched his forehead. “What I did not know was the founding year of the Sentinel of Order.”

“The paper has been collected. What lies in it cannot now be altered,” Erynae shook her head.

“I know that.”

“Then stop altering it in your head,” Rhovyn too shook his head.

“Is that what I am doing?” Bram looked at him in honest confusion.

“It is what you have been doing ever since you handed it in,” Erynae stared at him in amusement, she found Bram rather charming.

“Did either of you know the founding year?” Bram asked.

“Aye,” said Erynae and Rhovyn together.

“Food, then.” Bram thought of asking more and then thought better of it.

Rhovyn's eyes swept once across the thinning crowd before they left, searching without quite admitting to himself that he was searching, he didn't find her and so he fell into step beside Erynae and Bram.

They made their way toward the gate and just as they stepped past the threshold, Ryska rounded the corner toward the same gate and stopped there on threshold, just short of it, as if something had halted her mid-step.

Her gaze fell on the street, she was only one step away from leaving the premises that had promised her safety. She weighed in her mind whether she ought to go out at all, but in the end, hunger decided the matter for her.

Tev's was only two streets away from the university gate, the horseman had told her. Two streets, in broad afternoon, with students walking the same way, was not exposure. It was luncheon, she told herself as much and went through the gate, but she had only reached the corner near the inn, where the crowd began to thin and the four boys stepped out before her.

She did not reach for the blade at her hip, because Vorath had said survive and had not said fight.

“Draconian girl.” One of them seized her by the chin, drew her into the corner, and tilted up her face. “We know what your people did.”

She froze, suddenly back in Viana. The Khorva’s hand gripped her chin as he tilted her face to examine her eyes. Vorath’s magic had turned them brown, but she still feared he’d discovered the golden beneath. His grip tightened, then he shoved her aside.

“Your people do not honor the laws of war laid down by the Mother Amara, you are a war criminal,” the boy tightened his grip upon her jaw.

Ryska came back to present, she was in Aldaene and a boy was threatening her. “You are in the wrong city for this," she tried to sound as strong as she could. “This is not Vialthor. This is Aldaene and there are soldiers but three streets away.”

“And who in these streets would speak for you against us?” He drew the knife from his belt, stepped forward, and closed the space between them. “If we chose to settle it here?” His hand slipped and the edge sliced her left arm near the elbow. “An accident," he released her and stepped back, the first hint of fear appeared on his face. “Tell anyone and the next will not be.”

She turned sharply back toward the university and only felt the knot in it ease when the gate finally came back into view. In her hurry she clipped shoulders with a student coming the other way, hard enough that he stumbled half a step to catch himself and she didn't stop, didn't glance back, didn't offer so much as a word for it, just kept walking until she found a corner far from the crowd and sank down onto the cold floor.

The student turned, staring after her. "...What?" He huffed unbelievably.

The girl beside him tutted, watching Ryska's retreating back with open distaste. "What else would you expect from a Draconian," she turned to him, and softened her expression. "Are you well, My Prince?"

"Titles are forbidden within Aethoria," he shot her a sharp look. "Act like a student."

"Sorry Valere," she offered.

He didn't answer her, his eyes were still fixed on Ryska and then it found her forearms and he saw them, lines of gold laid into the skin like veins of gold and he thought.

Vianian girl.

"War reached Aldaene without Aldaene ever having to fight it," he said at last more to himself than to her, shook his head and turned toward his dark wooded carriage waiting beyond the gate.

Outriders fell into formation as he approached, he climbed in without looking back, the door shut behind him with a soft click, and the carriage began its long climb out of Aethoria District, up through the switchbacks carved into the Savale ranges, the city started shrinking below until it was little more than a smear of rooftops and smoke.

The palace came into view gradually; the whole structure seemed to rise out of the mountain itself rather than sit upon it.

The moment his carriage rolled to a stop in the palace courtyard, servants were already moving. One pulled it open, another fell into step to take his travel cloak the instant he stepped down, while a third hovered nearby with a cool cloth.

"Your Highness, the bath's been drawn should you..."

"Later," Valere said and walked towards dining hall and by the time he reached the dining hall, his chair had already been pulled out.

The moment Valere dropped into his seat, another set of footsteps followed him into the hall.

"Jye," Valere said glancing up at his brother. "You took the trouble of leaving council for this?"

Crown Prince Vehase huffed and settled into the seat beside him. "It's your last lunch at home," he said. "From tomorrow, you'll be eating at the Abbeys for the next three years," he served Valere's plate. "Figured the least I could do was let a man have his brother's company before he's gone," he took a bite of food and held it out toward Valere. "How was the exam?"

Valere leaned in and took the bite. "Long," he said. "Two hours, then archery trials tomorrow morning if I pass today's paper."

A servant filled Vehase's plate now in turn, and Valere reached over to offer him the first bite. They ate with half-finished sentences, Vehase asked about the hall, the crowd, whether Cordaelae's speech was as dry as it always was.

Valere laughed at it and then, mid-bite, something in his face shifted. "Jye," he said, setting his fork down. "I saw a Vianian girl."

Vehase straightened at once. "Was anyone cruel to her?"

"Just whispers," Valere thought about her and wondered.

How must she be handling all this alone?