Bram Laebaedore

The wind, bored with Rhovyn's endless thoughts and Erynae's silence, drifted away in search of something more interesting. Having witnessed this day every year for four hundred and twelve years, she knew well that it always brought with it a few souls worth watching and surely enough, she found an Ashfolk boy wandering the Aethoria district.

Bram Laebaedore had never before set foot in Aldaene, and the city had apparently decided to announce that fact to everyone except Bram himself. It was enormous, impossibly loud, and smelled of nine different things at once. He had roamed the district twice in search of the academy gates, which his invitation letter had confidently declared were visible from anywhere in the district. Bram kept walking, beginning to question both the honesty and the eyesight of whoever had written that sentence, when he walked directly into someone turning left at a crossing.

“Watch yourself!”

“I...” Bram began, then faltered.

He looked down and found a Halfling woman standing before him, one hand planted firmly upon her hip, the other gripping a wicker basket. Her orange curls framed a face turned sharply upwards towards him; her narrowed orange eyes fixed upon his with an expression that suggested she had already heard enough. Bram's mouth remained half-open, the rest of his answer lost somewhere between his thoughts and his tongue. He could not tell which part of the world she hailed from; Aldaene was blue, or so they said. His gaze flickered briefly to the basket, then back to her face. He realized at once that insisting he had not seen her, a woman scarcely half his size, was unlikely to be a wise choice. Indeed, judging by the look she was giving him, it might prove the unwise choice of his day.

She stared at him for a moment before her frown gradually softened. Perhaps he was a student, after all, one of the many who had come to Aethoria for the examination. “Lost?” she asked.

Bram offered her a nervous smile. “Painfully,” he admitted. “I was looking for Aethoria.”

“Left of that crossroads is Abbys" she pointed towards the northern road, then gave a small chuckle. “Pass both exams first to live there," she turned towards the road running east from where they stood. "Walk this way, then take the southern road at the next crossroad, then you will come to another crossroad but keep south and at the following one, take the road going east, Aethoria is about twenty paces beyond."

“But someone told me to go two streets west...” Bram stared at her, increasingly uncertain of everything he had been told that morning.

“Nuisance!” She looked personally offended on behalf of the city. “Aldaene does not have west or east," she shook her head. “We give directions by north and south and anyone who tells you otherwise is either a foreigner... or amusing themselves at your expense.”

Bram's face fell into disbelief, and the woman sighed with the weary resignation of a mother rescuing an unfortunate child from his own misfortune. “Come along,” she set off down the street. “At this rate, you'll wander into the harbor and enlist in the navy instead of the university.”

Bram laughed despite himself and hurried after her. As they walked south, the streets opened into busier thoroughfares, crowded with boys and girls of his age, their families, escorts and the occasional guards keeping watch over the gathering throng. Some were gathered around roadside stalls, eating as they talked, while others hurried past with letters and admission documents clutched in their hands. The air carried the aroma of freshly baked bread and a dozen other foods whose names Bram could not guess. He wished he could stop and taste them all, but finding the academy before the registration closed began mattered more.

"The city grows crowded for both days of the exam," she informed, sensing his gaze while she drifted into an old memory. “Once, more than two thousand students came to sit the exam. The inns were overflowing, and folk took to welcoming strangers beneath their own roofs.”

"So Aldaene has nice people too?"

“This is the capital, handsome infantryman," she gave him a sidelong look, her eyes travelled over his white hair, white eyes and his strong body, then she took a shortcut at the second crossroads, leading him through a narrow alleyway. “You will find every kind of person here. Good, bad, evil, saints, criminals, saviors, and some who are merely counting the days.”

“How did you know I was an infantryman?”

“I was born here, boy. I have seen Aethoria and her students too many times not to recognize one by sight," she stopped as they emerged from the alleyway. “Good body, and boots that have earned their living," she handed Bram her basket, reached inside and drew out a broad leaf, larger than both his palms, then took a stuffed bread, wrapped it in the leaf and pressed it into his hand. “You have not broken your fast this morning.”

He had not. “I was not...” He had been too anxious to eat anything at all but thought better of telling her so. “Thank you,” he said, and meant it with his whole heart.

“Pass the examination," she reclaimed her basket and pointed towards a street crowded with students. “That road ends at the academy gates and goes nowhere else. Do not manage to get lost still," she chuckled and took the north street. “And that leaf is edible,” she called over her shoulder.

Bram stood there for a heartbeat, watching the crowd of young students, guards and accompanying families moving along the street, the warm bread still held in both hands, when the realization struck him with embarrassing force. “I never asked your name!” He spun around. “Wait!”

But the Halfling woman was gone, vanished into the impossible crowd of examination day as though Aldaene itself had swallowed her back into its heart. Bram continued watching the direction in which she had disappeared before finally bringing the roll to his mouth.

The leaf tasted myrisine, with a pleasant sharpness of spice that lingered upon his tongue. The bread was warm and generously stuffed with ingredients he could not name, their flavors mingled in a curious mixture of sweetness, spice and something tangy that seemed to awaken his senses with every bite. He had never tasted anything quite like it, he wished he could return to the woman and ask what she had given him, but the street ahead was already filling and he had an examination to reach.

He began walking and the taste of the bread lingered as his thoughts wandered back to the day his invitation letter had arrived. His father had been content to let him make his own decision, while his brother and sister had been delighted by the prospect, already calling him Aethorian.

His relatives, however, had found the whole notion rather amusing. They had laughed at his audacity, at the thought of an Ashfolk boy from Maruna daring to dream of Aethoria when even the children of rich and noble of Maruna seldom imagined themselves within its walls.

His mother had been different from them all. She trusted his stubbornness, but she was too anxious to believe he would pass and loved him too dearly to speak that fear aloud, so she had asked only whether he was certain and he had told her no but that he meant to try all the same.

He had meant it then, and more now than when he had first spoken those words, his fingers tightened around the remaining bread roll. He did not know whether he would pass the exam, nor whether the university would ever admit him among its disciples, but he had come this far, and he would give Aethoria the chance to judge him before he judged himself.

The city gradually fell behind Bram as he reached the First Gate of the Bridge. Along its length, houses stretched to either side, their rows rose towards the broad arches of the gates, whose summits seemed to touch the very sky. Bram glanced upwards, taking in their immense height. Even the gates of the bridge stood taller than the towers of his Home Academy.

He paused before them, allowing his gaze to travel over the arches, then stepped across the threshold and continued towards Aethoria.