12

Bram, after wandering the city for ten minutes, trying to find the dorm, was finally guided there by a senior student and ended up arriving last, he found Rhovyn there and they ended up taking the stairs together.

Down at the gate, Kohl came last, he rounded the corner too fast and collided square into a Satyr woman. "Watch where you're..." Kohl started.

"Me watch where I'm going?" She cut him off and shot back. "You're the one who came around that corner like the building was on fire."

"You..." Kohl couldn’t say anything more; she was already gone.

He shook his head, climbed the stairs to room number one, and found three of his roommates already there. "Kohl Gromorg of Witherland, Infantry," he extended his hand.

"Rhovyn Aestlae of Ashenvale, cavalry." He shook hand.

"Bram Laebaedore of Balyti, infantry," he smiled. "My father farms wheat."

"Valere Paendrage of Aldaene, archer."

Bram's head turned sharp. "Prince of Aldaene?" he mouthed and then looked at him properly. "You don't look happy."

"You must not stay anywhere but in Abbys," Valere mimicked elder's way of speaking and then rolled his eyes. "Rubish rules, why do I need to stay here when my house is right here," he pointed towards the Paendrage Palace visible from window. "My home, I have balcony bigger than this room, of course I am not happy."

The complaint hung in the air a moment before all three of them drifted toward the window and saw the Paendrage Palace crowning the peak of the Savale range like something grown there rather than built.

"You'll get used to it," Kohl patted his shoulder.

Valere sighed, picked up one shirt, folded it badly, and declared himself finished with unpacking for the day but then he noticed the others were still working.

Boys moved through the corridors and adjoining rooms, sweeping floors, wiping tables, straightening beds, and carrying bundles of linens and a quiet guilt stirred within him.

He could hardly sit idle while everyone else worked, and so he got up, picked up a broom and swung it too hard, the bristles struck a nearby bucket, sending it tumbling across the floor. Water spilled over the stones, carrying dust and dirt into a widening trail.

Bram stared at him, Valere looked at him and shrugged.

“Leave," said Bram.

“I can clean it," he tried to grab broom and knocked few clothes off the bed.

“You have made it worse," Bram clamped his hands over his ears.

“I can fix that.”

“Valere.”

“I truly can...”

“Out," Bram seized him by the shoulders and marched him toward the door.

“But I was trying to help!”

"Please don't help us, Valere," he pushed Valere into the corridor and shut the door behind him.

Valere stared at the closed door, sighed, left the corridor and returned to the small balcony atop the stairs. He rested both hands upon the stone railing and looked across the grounds, beyond the trees, the distant lights of the women's halls.

He remembered the look on Ryska's face when she'd first stepped through the gate, somewhere between wonder and something sadder, that he hadn't quite understood in the moment but couldn't stop thinking about now.

He wondered, too, whether the girls she'd been placed with would take to her the way his own friends had, or whether she'd have to fight for her place there the way she seemed to fight for everything else.

Two of the beds already had packs upon them and two were empty when Ryska reached her room number three and twenty, she chose the one to the left of the window.

A girl was sitting on the bed to the right of the window; a dark-haired human woman with a small face and careful hands. She looked up when Ryska appeared in the doorway and rose to greet her.

“Nehara Sonysae of Baenidae, medicine.”

“Ryska Aen of Solari, archery.”

“Ryska Aen,” said she with a nod, but her voice carried no weight of opinion in it, she had not yet formed one.

Ryska sensed it and did not think further about it, she set her pack upon the bed, and the door opened again.

Erynae came through with her pack over one shoulder and looked over the room, the window was huge, the river and the Paendrage palace built in Savale range was visible from it, she found it satisfactory and put the pack on remaining bed.

“Erynae Sinhalese of Kakinara, cavalry.”

“I saw you in the Grand Court,” said Ryska.

“And I saw you.” Erynae looked at her but did not smile or made rude face.

The fourth bed, the one that already had a pack upon it, belonged to Cyren, a Satyr woman.

“Cyren Auospaexe of Sylvaria, mage,” she sat upon her bed. “The theoretical integration of elemental attunement with ranged precision was the Collegium’s most significant achievement in the shaping of combined-arms doctrine," she looked at Ryska. “It is a considerable loss.”

“It is,” Ryska replied briefly.

Cyren sensed a wall in Ryska’s voice, the kind that appeared when someone spoke of a loss they had never known and gave the words without measuring what it cost to say them. She had spoken a true thing and only belatedly understood what that truth had cost the person to whom it had been said but she did not apologize, for she felt no need of it.

Nehara looked at them both and decided that the most useful contribution she could make in that moment was to let the silence settle.

“The garden,” Erynae changed the topic, “I walked through it on the way in.”

“I know the name of every plant in that garden and what each one does," said Nehara. "It is a beautiful garden, the one in Merrath is better, it is called Caelith Garden, and it has every rare plant from all over the world."

"Nobody can claim they have everything from the world unless they have walked through every inch of land through the Myris." Cyren said.

"It is just a way of saying and it is still a remarkable garden," Nehara shrugged.

“We had them in Solari,” Ryska was looking at the window, towards the silhouette of range that looked similar to her home. “Geothermal springs, healing gardens, though with different plants. The mineral water made things grow that did not grow anywhere else. There was a botanist in the lower quarter," she smiled faintly. “He taught half the children in the neighborhood the names of things whether they wished to know them or not. I knew the names of things.”

The room fell silent; it was the first spontaneous thing she’d offered, and none of the three knew what to say.

What should we say? one of the girls thought, turned the offer over and over in her mind, searched for something that wouldn't sound hollow. Her people had been wiped out, what do you say to that? Anything felt too small, too late, too much like reaching for a wound that wasn't yours to touch. All she knew were stories, but tales cannot tell the shape of her grief, not what she needed, not whether words would help or only make the room heavier.

So, no one said a word, they simply existed quietly in the room, as four people who were not yet friends, though already something more than strangers.