4

At his final words, the court broke into motion, the low murmur of thousands held breathe finally let go and they all turned towards the gate for luncheon.

Rhovyn's eyes swept once across the thinning crowd before they left, searching without admitting to himself that he was searching but when he did not find her, he fell into step beside Erynae and Bram.

“I knew most of it,” Bram scratched his forehead. “What I did not know was the founding year of the Sentinels of Order.”

“The paper has been collected. What lies upon it cannot now be altered,” Erynae shook her head.

“I know that.”

“Then stop altering it inside your own head,” Rhovyn shook his head as well.

“Is that what I'm doing?” Bram looked at him with honest confusion.

“It is what you've been doing since the moment you handed it in,” Erynae looked at him with quiet amusement, for she had begun finding Bram rather charming.

“Did either of you know the founding year?” Bram asked.

“Aye,” Erynae and Rhovyn answered together.

Bram thought of asking another question, then wisely abandoned the idea. "Food, then."

They made their way towards the gates, and just as they stepped beyond the threshold, Ryska rounded the corner leading towards the same gates and stopped upon the threshold itself, only a single step from leaving Aethoria, as though something unseen had halted her in the middle of her stride.

Her gaze fell upon the street beyond. It was only one step between the safety promised by the Charter and the city that lay outside it. She weighed the choice in silence, wondering whether she ought to leave the grounds at all, but hunger settled the argument where courage could not.

Tev's was only two lanes from the university gates, two lanes, beneath the broad light of afternoon, with students walking the same road, did not count as exposure. It was only luncheon; she told herself as passed beneath the gates and she had only reached the corner near the inn, where the crowd had already begun thinning into smaller groups, when four boys stepped into her path.

She did not reach for the blade resting at her hip, because Vorath had told her to survive, and had never told her to fight.

“Draconian girl.” One of them seized her by the chin, dragged her deeper into the corner, and tilted her face towards the light. “We know what your people did.”

She froze, for a heartbeat she was no longer in Aldaene. She was back in Viana, a Khorva's hand was gripping her jaw as he lifted her face to examine her eyes. Vorath's magic had turned them brown, yet terror still whispered that he had seen the gold hidden beneath them. His grip had tightened, and then he had shoved her away.

The memory vanished, she stood once more in Aldaene, a boy's hand upon her face instead of a soldier's.

“Your people broke the laws of war laid down by Mother Amara,” the boy's fingers bit harder into her jaw. “You are war criminals.”

“You are in the wrong city for this,” Ryska forced strength into her voice, though her pulse hammered against her throat. “This is not Vialthor. This is Aldaene, and soldiers are but three lanes away.”

“And who in these streets would speak for you against us?” He drew the knife from his belt, stepped closer, and closed what little space remained between them. “If we chose to settle it here?” His hand slipped, the blade sliced across her left arm above the elbow and she hissed.

“An accident," he released her and stepped back, the first shadow of fear crossed his face. “Tell anyone, and the next one will not be.”

His eyes darted toward the mouth of the alley, toward the distant clatter of boots and the faint calls of the city watch and for the first time, the confidence drained from his face. His companions glanced uneasily along the street, Ryska fell to the ground, she struck the cold stone hard and they fled at once.

Her vision blurred at the edges; their fading bootsteps summoned the bootsteps of men along with their laughter and hands on her and the line between memory and the present dissolved entirely. Phantom hands moved over her skin, they dragged her across the snowy ground, threw her down, again and again, until her body went numb and she teetered on the edge of unconsciousness, but a voice pulled her back.

"Mamma," a child called. "Help, Mamma!"

"Vynarra, don't go near her!" a woman called, but the girl had already reached her.

"Jejie," the girl crouched and looked at Ryska, then stumbled back, seeing her serpentine eyes. "Snake!"

Ryska looked at the woman scooping the child up and hurrying away, the way the girl sprawled over her mother's shoulder, twisting back to look at her not with accusation, but with curiosity, trying to understand why she shouldn't touch someone the world already called a monster.

She remembered watching someone with that same quiet curiosity as a child. A stranger had come to her home, and she had glared at him from her father's arms with all the fierce certainty of a daughter convinced her stare alone could keep him from stealing her father away.

She understood now that the man had only smiled and played along and remembered to the man had been Guru Ayhsate, he had protected the innocence of the child she had been and today, before all of Aethoria, he had promised to protect the student she had become.

She hurried backtowards the university, while her feet stumbled across the cobblestones she rounded the corner too quickly, too blinded by panic to see him standing there at all, until her shoulder crashed full into his chest with enough force to throw herself completely off balance.

She braced for stone to tear open her palms and face as world lurched sideways, but a hand shot forward and caught her wrist, stopping her before she had fallen more than a few desperate inches. Her breathing came hard and uneven, fear and shock tangled together until her vision swam at its edges, and still the hand around her wrist remained steady, as though whoever had caught her saw no reason to let go simply because the danger of falling had passed.

“Take your time," Valere said gently but when Ryska pulled her hand free and without so much as looking back at him, turned and walked away, he blinked after her. "Rude," he was caught somewhere between amusement and genuine offence.

“She was seated to my left,” Maendon glanced after Ryska. “I saw her, and good heavens Valere, she is a sight to behold.”

“You happen to find every girl a sight to behold.” Valere rolled his eyes.

“The gods did not spend their finest craft upon women for me to pretend otherwise," Maendon shrugged.

“You have never called me beautiful,” Shanje beside him folded her arms.

“You are no girl,” Maendon dismissed her then slung an arm around Valere's neck and turned his face towards the path where Ryska had vanished. “Look, even the space she leaves behind forgets how to be ordinary.”

“You've lost your senses,” Valere muttered.

“If you had seen her face, you would have lost yours as well,” Maendon declared. “You would have forgotten to breathe, forgotten the world existed, and your vision would have deserted everything except her.”

“Valere does not fall for faces,” Shanje answered at once.

“I am a man before I am anything else,” Valere shrugged. “Have you ever seen a man who didn't go for beauty? If you have, I want no part in following him.”

“Then where is your woman?” Shanje shot back. “Do you not find the women of Aldaene beautiful?”

“I have a preference,” Valere answered.

“What preference?"

“She must carry a mind that does not bend where mine refuses and a will that does not shrink where mine stands."

“So, someone born to your rank," Shanje lowered her gaze.

"Someone who can shoot an arrow without aiming at it and still find my heart before I ever know it was hers to aim at."