7

Basar Vad, 15

Five hundred students gathered in the Grand Court by discipline, they were trading first names for the first time in earnest, faces from the day before now finally given something to be called.

Grandmaster Cordaelae arrived and the low hum of first meetings and traded names dimmed by degrees as students noticed him crossing the grounds.

He stopped upon the platform and let the silence settle on its own before he spoke.

“Yesterday twelve hundred stood in this court, five hundred stands here now," his gaze followed lines. "That is not luck, it is the result of preparation meeting an honest standard, and I will not diminish it by calling it anything else." He continued. "Grey belongs to Vaerhold academy, middle wing, the oldest building upon this cliff-face. Blue belongs to Solmaere academy; east wing, the horses are as much a part of it as the students. Gold belongs to Aelthara academy, west wing, open to the weather on the seaside, because an archer who can only shoot in fair conditions is no archer at all. Green belongs to Merrath academy, east wing, the quietest on campus," he took a breathe and added. "It has a garden on its south, Caelith Garden, open to all but the plants are touched by none. That is the only rule it has, and it has held for two hundred years.”

“There is a fifth academy, scaffolding is still upon the upper floor," he paused for the comfortable number of seconds. "Black belongs to Kaedac Mage academy, west wing, there is no permanent sign above its door yet. It does not fall under the entrance examination. It is three years old, and it is still being built," he stared into void for a moment. "What they are trying to rebuild was five centuries in the making and was destroyed in a single season."

Cordaelae's voice carried easily across the hall, and as he spoke, students began glancing sideways at one another, strangers from yesterday traded the same silent question in each other's faces.

Do you hear the same I am hearing?

"Its first academic year begins now, this term," Cordaelae continued. "Invite-only, same as every academy here but it does not yet come under the entrance examination as the other four do. It trains, and it does not yet ask of applicants what the other four ask, because the base of it has been destroyed, and it is now learning on its own what to ask," he sighed a short breath. "So, this year, Aethoria admits three hundred and seventy-five students. Seventy-five to each of the five academies."

Is he talking about the Collegium? Ryska thought. No, that can't be right. The Collegium burned two months ago. He said Kaedac's been building for three years.

Three years, not two months and yet, five centuries of knowledge lost in a single season. She knew of only one place that held that, only one archive old enough to carry that kind of weight. Magic, five centuries, destroyed all at once. It could only be the Collegium Institute of Solari.

Unless he built it before it burned, she thought, and the suspicion settled into her chest, unless he knew.

She looked at Cordaelae differently now, not the steady, seasoned Vidhya the rest of the yard seemed content to trust without question, but a man who spoke of a catastrophe in the past tense three years before it had happened and did not seem to find that strange at all.

Aelthara Academy, Aethoria

“Three stages. Distance, movement and decision.” Bowkeeper Amaeren, walked the line once. “You know the distance stage. The movement stage you have not seen. The decision stage I shall not explain beforehand.”

The distance stage was easy. Ryska shot all three cleanly. The movement stage was different, the platform’s surface was not the smooth stone she had imagined, but slightly uneven and that mattered when one was moving between positions and needed one’s feet to know the ground without one’s eyes consulting it.

She adjusted within the first three positions and completed the movement stage without a miss. The decision stage had three targets, two standard and one marked with a red band, closest and largest. It would give marks, but it was the obvious choice, the choice that required nothing and proved nothing.

Ryska looked to the third, the furthest target, the one partially obscured by the platform’s corner-post. It required reading the gap and trusting the arrow to find it. She adjusted her grip as the wind shifted, chose the furthest target and struck it clean.

“Collegium-trained.” Amaeren acknowledged a specific loss without making ceremony of it and moved down the line.

Valere stood three spots left from Ryska and watched her as she gauged the wind and adjusted her aim. When his turn came, he cleared the distance stage upon the furthest target, a skill honed since he was six years old. In the decision stage, his arrow found its mark, as clean as hers.

He walked to Ryska after his turn was over, she saw him take the steps and held his gaze.

“I have never seen footwork such as yours when you closed the gap,” he said.

“I learned it at the Collegium,” Ryska replied.

“Is it some closely guarded technique of House Solari? I have seen archers trained at the Collegium before, yet never have I witnessed such footwork.” He stood Infront of her with his hand on railing and eyes on her.

“It is taught only to Aen women,” Ryska held his gaze for a moment before lowering it down.

“Would you teach it to me?” He tilted his face to get better view of her.

“Are you an Aen woman?” Ryska raised an eyebrow.

He smiled in amusement and shifted his gaze to her wound. “Your arm.”

“It is fine.”

“I did not ask whether it was fine.”

“Then what did you ask?”

“Nothing. I said your arm and that was all.”

“Is this how humans speak to one another?” Ryska asked with genuine confusion.

"Mine alone, that word," said he and then he stared at her. "I'd hate for my people to be credited with something so clever," his eyes stayed on her scales, she was different in daylight, less fire and more alive.

Ryska looked at the city settled against the shore of the great sea, tomorrow she would walk into Aethoria as a student for the first time. She wondered if the other students would see past the scales, and then she wondered if she wanted them to.

Valere watched her profile, at her arched brow, he found himself wondering what life would look like beside her, whether the people would whisper, whether he'd care if they did. He decided, somewhat to his own surprise, that he wouldn't.