14

They made their way back toward their rooms soon after and then the bell rang. Its deep note rolled through the Cloisters, echoing along the stone corridors and spilling into every courtyard.

The grounds began to fill, nine hundred five and seventy students spilled out from both halls, crossed the garden and the bridge in loose clusters, voices rose easy against the evening air as everyone made their way toward supper.

Valere came down with his three roommates and stopped where exactly where he had promised he would wait. He saw her soon, and then he looked at her, she wore a simple shirt and skirt, with her golden hair gathered into an ordinary plait that hung over her shoulder. Her fingers played absently with the end of it as she walked, unaware of the attention she had caught.

Valere's gaze lingered and his imagination betrayed him, he pictured himself closing the distance, catching her gently at the waist, and pinning her against the edge of the stone wall as he lowered his face to the curve of her neck.

The thought struck him with enough force to make his jaw tighten, he stretched his hands at his sides, as though the simple act of opening and closing his fingers could banish the image but it did not.

He drew a slow breath and forced his attention back to the crowd, Ryska was still coming toward him and somehow, that was worse.

Ryska stopped near him, and Valere immediately fell into step beside her, for a moment, he said nothing and kept his gaze ahead, though every sense in him remained painfully aware of her presence beside him and what remained of his composure.

His hands slipped into his pockets, he did not trust them outside because some treacherous part of him feared that if he let them remain free, he might reach for her, catch her wrist, and pull her back toward him before he had given himself time to think.

The dining hall opened before them like something out of a palace's grandest court, soaring arched ceilings threaded with warm cresset light, tall windows, stone columns rose along either wall carved fine enough to belong in a throne room rather than the dorm.

Long benches ran the length of the hall in two great rows, each able to seat eight to a bench, stretching on and on to hold the better part of a thousand students without ever feeling crowded, the space itself was vast enough to swallow the noise of that many voices into something low, contented hum than chaos.

At the far end stood the serving counter, where a broad-shouldered Human man ladled stew into waiting bowls beside a Verdani woman, her skin patterned in soft pale moon hue, they were refilling baskets as needed with practiced hands.

Bram's eyes lit up the moment they crossed into the hall; he tracked straight past the crowd to the serving counter at the far end. "Is that..." he inhaled.

A thick, golden-spiced lentil stew steamed in wide pots, ladled out beside stacks of warm flatbread fresh off the griddle. Trays of spiced rice sat studded with peas and slivered almonds, bowls of yogurt cooled with mint beside them, and clay pots of vegetables simmered soft in a rich, buttery sauce that scented the whole hall.

"Oh, we're eating well tonight," Bram was entirely unbothered by anyone he left behind.

Erynae and Rhovyn claimed a spot with filled trays, and Bram and Kohl dropped in across from them not long after, Bram was already tearing into the bread before he'd properly sat down.

Valere guided Ryska toward the same table, and a round of hands went out across the bench for quick introductions and even quicker greetings.

"Ryska," she said when her turn came.

Rhovyn took her hand, and for a heartbeat, the noise of the hall seemed to recede. The name stirred through his memory, and he searched every corner of it for something familiar. He knew the names of the great houses, the old bloodlines, the names carried through generations and carved into the histories of their lands but hers was nowhere.

Ryska was not a name of her land, or any land of Myris, he looked at her and wondered, why had she been given a name that did not exist?

It was not a name she had chosen. It was given to her before she was old enough to know what a name meant, carried through every year of her life and yet it belonged nowhere in the world he knew.

He looked at her again, and the thought changed shape, perhaps that was why it suited her. Perhaps it was precisely because the name did not exist that it suited her, she looked as though she belonged to no ordinary place either.

Ryska, he thought, a name without history, without precedent and somehow, he thought, it made her all the more remarkable.

Ryska, he thought again, a name that did not exist and yet somehow, he could not imagine her with any other.

Valere extended his hand after him and Ryska narrowed her eyes at him. “We know each other," she took his hand anyway.

The instant their palms met, something in Valere seemed to falter. His breath caught almost imperceptibly, and his thoughts scattered beneath the simple warmth of her touch. He looked down at their joined hands, then back at her, as though he had forgotten for a moment what he had intended to say.

“A second introduction hurts no one," he managed that much.

Ryska gave him a look that plainly said she did not believe him, he smiled at that, held her hand a moment longer than necessary, then another and only when he had no respectable reason left to keep it did he finally release her.

Cyren and Nehara joined them lastly, and Kohl when he saw Cyren glared at her. "You."

Cyren caught the glare and met it with an unimpressed look of her own. "Nice name," she smirked a little. "You," she stuck her hand out anyway. "I'm Cyren Auospaexe of Sylvaria, mage."

"Finger warrior," Kohl muttered, and dropped onto the bench with the rest of them without shaking her offered hand.

Cyren’s hand hovered in the air for a moment before she let it fall. She sat across from him, their eyes locked in an unbroken stare over the table, because neither were willing to be the first to look away.

Bumped into me first, Kohl thought, and now she's making fun of me.

Degenerate, Cyren thought and moved on.

Rhovyn's eyes kept drifting down the table to where Ryska sat and ate like she was trying to take up as little space as possible. He wanted to say something to pull her into the noise instead of leaving her at the edge of it, he rehearsed opening in his head and discarded them, but the wanting didn't go away.

Is she thinking about her family? Valere thought to himself as he noticed a small furrow of her brow, he knew the grief she carries, the things she hears, he almost leaned over to say something but thought better of it.

Did she want to be asked at all, or would it just make her feel more watched than she probably already did?

Ryska lowered her gaze to her plate, yet her thoughts no longer remained with the meal, they wandered to Abbys. It stood exactly as he'd described it, down to the smallest detail and for a moment it startled her, seeing it made real after so long only knowing it through Tharaen's telling of it.

Tharaen had only ever spoken of it once, he was certain there'd be a hundred more chances to talk again, there hadn't been and now she was inside the place he'd only ever given her in fragments, with no one left to fill in what he'd never gotten to say.