Chapter 7 #3
I searched for the man in black. Nothing. Coren waited near the doors. When I reached him, he held out the strap of my travel bag. I hadn’t realized he had been carrying it.
I took it. “You’re leaving.”
“Yes.” The answer came so easily that my chest dropped. Stupid. I had spent most of four days wishing he would stop talking to me. He looked toward the corridor. “Calis has you.”
That did not sound reassuring. “She doesn’t seem particularly pleased about it.”
“That’s her face.” I blinked. Coren looked entirely serious.
“You’re joking.”
“No.” I couldn’t tell. That was probably the point.
He started to turn. “Coren.” He looked back. I had no idea why I had stopped him. Thank you felt too intimate for a man who had fed me dried meat and answered every third question for four days. Don’t go was humiliating.
So I settled on nothing.
He seemed to understand anyway. “Good luck, Alerain.” Then he left the Hall. Not toward the gate. Not back to the Hollowlands.
Just gone into the Sanctum, disappearing around the next arch as if I had already stopped being his responsibility.
I watched longer than I should have.
“Alerain.” Calis. Right. I followed her.
She did not give me a tour. I realized that after the third time I had to twist around to see what she had already walked past. We crossed above a massive circular structure sunk into the center of the Sanctum.
People were fighting below. Really fighting.
One woman sent fire across the floor. The man opposite her threw up a wall of stone fast enough that the flames broke around it.
I slowed. Calis did not. “What is that?”
“The Crucible.”
That sounded ominous enough that I decided not to ask what happened there. We kept moving.
From the bridge I caught pieces of the Sanctum instead of explanations. Green terraces disappearing between trees. A dark copper roof glowing above a training court. Black towers to the west where the light seemed thinner. A broad pale district ahead where golden lines ran through the stone.
Calis named them only when I asked. “And those?”
“Verdant Hallows.”
“The green ones.”
“Earth.”
“And the water?”
“Some Earth wielders develop Water affinity.”
“But they’re not Water wielders.”
She looked at me once. “No.”
That was apparently all I was getting.
The dark towers came next.
I already knew the answer.
“Shadow.”
“Umbra Rings.”
My eyes moved across the bridges.
No black-haired man. I looked away before Calis noticed me looking. The pale structures ahead brightened as we approached.
“Aurora Circle,” she said.
Light.
My division.
The thought sat strangely.
People moved through the open court carrying weapons and books. One man had blood dried along his jaw. Another woman sat on a low wall wrapping her own knuckles while speaking to someone with his arm around her waist.
No one looked like a child.
No one acted like one either.
A candidate passed us with a narrow metal clasp at his collar. I watched him.
“Advanced,” Calis said.
I turned. “How can you tell?”
“The clasp.” Right. That made sense.
“What makes him advanced?”
“He’s completed foundational requirements and has been cleared for higher practical work.”
“How long does that take?”
“Depends on the candidate.”
“Years?”
“Sometimes.”
I almost stopped walking again.
Years.
I had thought I was coming here to learn how not to explode.
Apparently that could take years.
The Luminari Halls were warmer than the corridors we had crossed, though I didn’t know whether that came from magic or simply better walls. Lamps burned behind frosted glass. Voices carried from open doors. Somewhere farther down the hall, someone laughed hard enough to choke.
It sounded normal. That bothered me more than almost anything else.
Calis stopped at a dark wooden door with a small gold sunburst above the latch. “This is your quarters.”
“Mine?”
“Yours and another candidate’s.”
“My roommate.”
She handed me a metal disk etched with the same symbol. “The ward will recognize you once your signature settles.”
“Should I be worried by how often people tell me parts of me need to settle?” Calis looked at me. I pressed the disk to the latch. Nothing happened. She said nothing. I waited. The rune beneath my ribs warmed. Silver-blue light ran through the gold sunburst.
The whole thing flashed bright enough to hurt my eyes. The lock clicked. Calis stared at it.
I looked at her. “Is that normal?”
“No.”
She stepped back. “Assessment is at first bell. Eat before then.”
“Where?”
“Your roommate can show you.” She turned.
“Mistress Calis.” I looked past her down the corridor. For one second, I had the absurd urge to ask what I was supposed to do now. Not tomorrow. Now. The door was open. Coren was gone. Everyone here knew where they belonged except me. I didn’t ask. Calis waited anyway. “Never mind.”
She looked at me for another moment. “First bell.” Then she left. I opened the door. It was one room, two beds, two desk, and two wardrobes. A narrow door at the far end stood partly open, showing a bathing chamber beyond with a deep stone basin and copper pipes running into the wall.
The other half of the room had already been thoroughly claimed.
Books covered one desk. A dark blue dress hung from the wardrobe door. Several ribbons were tied around one bedpost. A pair of boots sat abandoned in the middle of the floor.
A woman was sitting cross-legged on the occupied bed with a book open across her lap.
She looked up. Her black hair was braided loosely over one shoulder. Her skin was creamy and her eyes were so dark they looked almost as black as her hair. A gold rune curved along the inside of her wrist.
She stared at me. I stared back.
Then she looked at the boots in the middle of the room. “Those are mine.”
I looked down. “I guessed.”
She slid off the bed and kicked them beneath it.
One hit the wall.
The other disappeared somewhere under the frame. “Better.” Not really. She brushed her hands over her trousers, then held one out. “Vareena Kamari.”
I looked at her hand and all I saw was Irelia’s fingers in mine. I could feel the warmth during the festival, and the aching cold afterward.
I swallowed and took it. “Lyra Alerain.”