13

The room soon fell into order again, they cleaned the room, straightened the tables, swept the floors, and fixed everything previous year students had managed to disturb before the room finally deemed fit to inhabit.

Erynae and Cyren made their way to the office to collect the fresh bedsheets allotted to their rooms. They returned with their arms full, and Ryska and Nehara helped them spread the sheets across the beds, pulling the corners tight and smoothing the blankets until each sleeping place looked neat and ready.

Once the room had been settled, the four of them looked at one another, took their buckets for the bathhouse, and stepped into the corridor. They had been given little more than directions to their rooms, so they began searching for the rest of the facilities themselves.

Erynae stopped a girl passing the other way. “Where’s the bathhouse?”

“Ground floor,” the girl said.

Erynae thanked her, and the four continued down the stairwell until it split into two directions, they took the right. The stairs descended deeper into the Cloisters, and when they reached the bottom, they crossed a long stone passage where the sound of running water grew clearer with every step.

Then they saw the door, it stood near the river, almost against the outer wall of the Cloisters, with the faint murmur of flowing water rising beyond the stone. Cool air drifted through the passage, carrying the clean scent of the river.

“There,” Nehara said, they approached together and stopped before the entrance to the bathhouse.

The bathhouse opened into a vast chamber of pale stone, where several pools lay beneath carved arches. Steam rose from the surfaces in slow, curling veils, and the hot water shimmered beneath the soft glow of magic cressets set into the walls.

Erynae looked around with quiet wonder. “My mother told me about this place,” she said. “The pools run on nature magic.”

"So, the water never runs cold?" Nehara glanced toward the steaming water.

"It didn't in all years she studied at Aethoria," said Erynae with a smile.

They smiled and began setting their buckets aside before removing their outer garments and preparing for the bath and ss Ryska loosened her hair, Nehara’s gaze caught upon it.

The golden strands slipped free and spilled over Ryska in a shining cascade. They fell around her like a veil, flowing down her back until they reached just above her knees.

Nehara stared for a moment. “You have such long and beautiful hair.”

Ryska’s cheeks warmed. “Thank you,” she murmured, gathering some of it over one shoulder before she entered the nearest pool with them.

The heat of the water eased into their limbs, and one by one, their shoulders relaxed. Steam drifted around them as they settled against the smooth stone edges, letting the weariness of the day slowly melt away.

For the first time since arriving at Abbys, none of them had anywhere they needed to be, they simply rested.

They bathed without much more said between them and after they had finished bathing, they stepped from the steaming pools and dried themselves before dressing in their indoor clothes. They pulled on comfortable skirts and light tops, tying their hair back as they gathered their buckets and the clothes they had brought with them.

“We still have the laundry,” Cyren reminded them.

Ryska sighed softly, but the others laughed, and together they followed the others out a side door to the ghat below, wide stone steps leading down into the river itself, where a line of girls were already crouched at the water's edge, working cloth against stone.

The evening air felt cool against their freshly bathed skin, and the sound of the river followed them as they walked.

Erynae knelt beside Ryska and started on her own linens. "You're fast at this," she said watching Ryska's hands move.

"I keep Sharad," Ryska said and wrung out the shirt in her hands with twist. "Whole month."

"I do too," Erynae said.

"I had no idea it was kept outside of Viana," Ryska looked at her in surprise.

"Same, I thought only Miranda observed Sharad," s small smile formed on her face. "We share something."

They smiled at the common ground they found, small as it was.

Once the wash was done, they carried the wet bundles up through a side gate into a yard attached to the bathhouse, lines strung post to post across the open space, already half-filled with other students' laundry snapping faintly in the evening air. Both found an empty stretch of line and worked in silence for a while.

"Erynae," said Erynae finally, holding out a damp hand before remembering it was damp and wiping it on her skirt first. "I don't think we've properly said names yet."

"Ryska," she took the offered hand anyway, wet or not.

The rising moon looked on at the two of them a moment, and something softened in his face, an almost-smile he didn't try to stop then he turned right and found nothing but chaos waiting for him there instead.

Bram planted both hands on the edge of the trough and declared, "You're doing it wrong."

Valere didn't look up from the shirt he was wringing. "Says who?"

"Me," Bram reached over and seized the other end of the shirt. "I know how to wash things."

"So do I," replied Valere. "I've done it during Sharad."

"And you're still terrible at it."

"Say that again," Valere's jaw tightened.

"You're still terrible at it." Bram gave the shirt a firm tug for emphasis, which was the wrong thing to do, because the fabric chose that exact moment to give way at the seam with a soft, final rip.

Water and suds sloshed out of the trough and over both their leg.

Valere looked down at the torn shirt, back up at Bram, "Look what you did."

"What I did? Your hands were on it too."

"You yanked it like you were pulling a plow."

"I was fixing your grip!"

"There was nothing wrong with my grip until you got involved!"

They both dropped to grab at the fallen shirt at once, which only knocked the whole basin sideways, sending a fresh wave of soapy water across the stones and directly toward the bucket Kohl was sitting on.

He lifted his feet just in time, as though he'd been expecting exactly this.

Beside him, Rhovyn sat with elbow on knees, he was watching the water spread in a slow dark stain across the stone, then flick her eyes back up to Bram and Valere, who were now arguing over whose fault the flood was while both still knelt in it.

"Are you going to stop them?" Kohl asked.

"No," Rhovyn said.

"Neither am I," Kohl let out a soft sigh. “So, this is how three years will look.”

Rhovyn’s gaze remained upon Valere and Bram, who were still kneeling in the water and blaming one another for the ruined shirt. “Gods help us,” he murmured.

Kohl sighed again, quieter this time and thought, three years of this, neither of them looked particularly convinced that they would survive it.

The moon hung above the Cloisters while the chaos below continued unabated. Valere and Bram were still arguing over the ruined shirt, their voices carrying across the courtyard as Kohl and Rhovyn watched with weary amusement. Then the moon seemed to cast his quiet light upon the whole scene, and a soft chuckle rose from the garden breeze.

Three years stretched ahead of them, three years of laughter, quarrels, friendships, late nights, endless studies, and memories not yet made and beneath the moonlight, even their first ridiculous disaster felt like the beginning of something worth remembering.