32

Vialthor Palace, same afternoon

To Her Imperial Highness Princess Naervyn of Vialthor,

Your letter, citing Precedent Fourteen regarding foreign nationals under investigation in protected institutions, has been received and reviewed by this office with the seriousness owed to any formal communication bearing the royal seal.

I write to inform Your Highness that the Charter of Aethoria Central University does not distinguish between students on the basis of nationality, race, or the political circumstances of the nation from which they originate. It has never done so. It was written, four hundred and twelve years ago, by founders who anticipated precisely the situation Your Highness’s letter now presents.

An external power seeking to remove a student from the Charter’s protection on the grounds that the student’s mere presence is itself the offence requiring investigation.

The student in question, Ryska Aen, sat the entrance examination openly, under her own name and in her own appearance, and was admitted by the same merit through which every other student in her cohort was admitted. She is not under investigation by any authority holding jurisdiction over this institution. The four deaths in Aldaene’s lower city remain under investigation by the Paendrage Court, to whose jurisdiction the matter belongs, and that court has not at any point, named her as a person of interest.

I decline the demand in full.

I would add, in the spirit of the cordial relations this office has always endeavored to maintain with the Crown of Vialthor, that should Your Highness’s office wish to pursue legitimate concerns regarding the four deaths through the Aldaene Royal Court, this office would receive such a request with considerably greater warmth.

I remain, as ever, bound to a Charter that answers only to the law and holds firm against any crown that seeks to bend it.

Vidhya Cordaelae
Aethoria Central University

Saevon read the letter aloud and put more weight on, 'bound to a Charter that answers only to the law and holds firm against any crown that seeks to bend it' part while holding Naervyn's gaze and slid it across the table toward her when it was finished.

Naervyn's glare could have stripped paint, but she didn't dignify the look with a response and instead turned to Norvaente.

"As head of Morvaeth," she said, "it was my duty, I handled it without citing your name because I knew Cordaelae would refuse and when he did, it was only a princess whose request had been denied. That is a far lesser insult than an emperor’s request refused,” Naervyn cast a quick glance at Saebastyn before turning to her father. “I believe Rosaete is hedging.”

“I believe he is the kind of man who would hedge,” he leaned backward. “His forefathers thought themselves superior by having Aethoria in the capital; he carries the same pride.”

“Which is its own kind of insult,” Naervyn sat across from her father. “The university’s patronage programme, the list was sent this year as well, was it not?” Naervyn asked.

“With eighteen students this year,” Norvaente clarified. “We have not yet sent our word, as I have been occupied with the business of the war.”

Naervyn leaned forward and rested her finger on the table. “I want us to sponsor Ryska Aen.”

“It is a decision I must make with Ser Deraen,” Norvaente turned toward the door. "Summon him."

Naervyn explained her proposal again when Ser Deraen arrived and leaned back in her chair, to hear both of them argue against it.

“The world would question why we should extend aid to one who violated the laws of war and burned civilians,” said Ser Deraen. “I think it a poor proposal.”

“The world would say that we value talent above all and that we are not so small-minded as to bind every matter to the war,” she turned to look at Ser Deraen.

“It is true enough that Khorva is made up of the finest soldiers and the Draconian princess’s merit speaks plainly of her talent," said Ser Deraen. "Yet she is Draconian and if she is brought into our proximity, she may prove more danger than asset."

"She is Aen by birth," said Naervyn. "Aen women are bonded with dragons from birth."

"Bonded, aye," Saevon said, "but bonding is not summoning, only a magician can call a dragon to the field, and Ryska is no magician," Saevon gestured toward list. "She's an archer, and that's why we never faced a dragon in war, whatever bond she carries by blood was never hers to command."

Does she carry that as guilt, he wondered, the choosing of the bow over the staff? If she'd been born a mage instead, if that bond had ever been hers to summon, the war might never have ended the way it had.

That was precisely why they'd staked it, why Vialthor had chosen that moment to move at all, one time an Aen daughter walked the world without a dragon to answer for her, without the one weapon that had always kept her people beyond reach.

No mage born to call it, no dragon to save them. Just a girl with a bow, and a bloodline everyone assumed would protect her that never could.

“She is Aen by birth still,” argued Naervyn. “One way or another, she will prove useful to us.”

“We must never draw near the offspring of an empire we ourselves destroyed; history is full of examples of why such a mistake is to be avoided.” Ser Deraen argued, though he knew Naervyn would not listen; she never had.

"People are curious creatures," she said at last. "Ever eager to learn, and even more quick to accept anything and everything they are told, so long as it is told to them with enough confidence." She looked at Saevon. "You accept that she cannot summon a dragon because someone, somewhere, told you but tell me, Uncle, who decided the shape of that limit? Was it Ryska Aen? Or was it merely convenient for everyone else that it be true?"

"Do you think she was able to summon a dragon," Saevon frowned, "and still she didn't? Let her people die? Let her empire fall?"

"I think she cannot summon it now," said Naervyn. "That is not the same as saying she can never summon it." She rose, and the cresset light caught the edge of her face. "She was bonded at birth and that bond does not expire because she chose a bow over a staff as a girl." She stopped near her father's chair. "The dragon exists somewhere in this world, waiting on a thread she has not yet learned to pull, and she has time, more time than any of us would like, to learn enough of the old magic to pull it."

Lord Saevon and Ser Deraen exchanged a glance across the table, and then both looked to Norvaente in his chair, the three of them were caught in the same silent recognition. It was not the first time they had heard these words, they had spoken them once before, in the days after Solari fell, when word came that Ryska Aen had vanished from the ashes of her own city and no one, not the army, not the scouts, not the mages who combed the wreckage for a body, had been able to say where she had gone.

"I want her bound to us before that day comes," she settled in a chair beside the king. "I will not wait to find out what she becomes once she remembers what she was always capable of being," she glanced at Saevon. "Better she kneel to us now, as a girl with a bow and a bloodline, than come to us later as a woman with a bloodline and a dragon."

"My dear niece," Saevon said, "did you ever see Solari?"

Naervyn glanced once at Norvaente, whose face gave her nothing and turned back to Saevon. "Where did that come from?"

"Solari is twice the size of Vialthor," Saevon said. "A city that had stood a thousand years, walls that were thick enough to break armies and in one night, seven parts of every ten were rendered to ash and silence," he held her gaze. "A dragon, my dear niece, is something she may yet need to learn to summon but the fire is hers, and we’ve watched Ryska reduce her own capital to ashes with it."