Chapter 21 Izzy
IZZY
I got to Elven Law class with plenty of time to spare. As the professor and students filtered in, I thanked my lucky stars that neither Rook nor Saldrea seemed to have this class.
Hooray for small miracles.
Given my interest in fighting injustice, I was really looking forward to this class and finding out all about the system… and how I could work it to my own ends.
I quickly found out… that wasn’t likely to happen. Turns out this class was mandatory for all non-elves and was less about the law and more propaganda about how elves were superior in every way and ruled over everyone, creating peace and prosperity.
I left feeling sick.
“Rough, isn’t it?” The voice pulled me from my dour thoughts as I turned down the hall.
Vyns leaned casually against a wall and smiled when I spotted him.
“Rough doesn’t begin to describe it,” I said, frustrated. “I’d hoped I could learn about the law, so I could use it to help people, but…”
“Yeah, the elves don’t want anyone else to know the law. That way they can do whatever they like. You need to be a noble to learn anything more than this drivel,” he said pushing off from the wall.
“And you’re noble?” I asked. He’d said something yesterday about his family being elevated because of his association with Saldrea.
Vyns scoffed. “Far from it.” He fell in step beside me as I made my way toward the lesser residence for lunch.
Only then did I recall what Myel had told me. “Right, dwarves, sylphim, undines, and dragons are noble, right?”
He nodded. “Though dragons are technically outside of the caste system. Sort of their own entity, but still in service to the elves.”
“What does that mean?”
“Essentially, treat them with respect, but they don’t use the “Di” caste identifier in their names. That’s pretty much it.”
“Oh… okay… so… when you said your family was elevated somehow?”
“Their status improved and they’re roughly on par with a noble, but their caste is still gentil, like you. Caste is caste, you can’t escape that unless a royal gives you special dispensation and under the queen regent, that’s never happened.”
“Right, so… nymphs and seraphim are gentil, who else?”
I still didn’t trust him, but I found it extremely easy to talk to Vyns. He was just so… nice and friendly and informative. He felt like an old friend. I couldn’t say exactly why I felt so comfortable around him.
God, I hoped this wasn’t a trick. My trust in men might never recover if it was.
“The gentil caste consists of nymphs, dryads, seraphim, and concubi.” The last word came out with distaste.
That gave me an opening to ask, “Don’t like concubi? And why are they called that, not incubi and succubi?” I’d never heard the term concubi in my world.
“They’re demons, foul beings in general,” he said as if the word itself tasted sour. “They were born to darkness and death in the lower realm.”
So… just a general angel-demon dislike, it seemed.
“And concubi is the in-between term, it means to lay beside, whereas incubus means to lay on top of, and succubus to lay beneath. Hence the term concubine, which does exist in your realm?”
Ah, yes, right.
How very sexist. Though, the usage of concubi was actually kind of neutral and not sexist. So… yeah.
Since I was getting a lesson in castes from Vyns anyway, I asked about the lower castes.
“The humble caste consists of pixies, tritons, salmaeri, trolls, and harbingers.”
I didn’t want to ask about all the words I hadn’t understood. That was for later.
“The caste below that doesn’t have a name, it’s just the lowest casts, consisting of hobgoblins, beastfolk, and ogres.”
I wondered if my roomkeeper, Zora, was a hobgoblin or an ogre. I was fairly certain she wasn’t a shifter or beastfolk, like Myel. Were ogres green like Shrek, if so, perhaps that’s what she was?
Again, questions for later.
Vyns continued, “And finally there are the giants. They aren’t in any caste because they’re not controlled by the elves. They’re enemies of civilized folk. Here in Seial, that means titans and their minions: cyclopses. In Elysial, it’s nephilim, and in Urval it’s pyrkai.”
And we were fast approaching the limit of what I could handle for one conversation.
He quickly added, “Oh, you may see a few titans on campus. They’re here as some sort of peace treaty exchange or something. I don’t know, and since Saldrea and her mother are involved, it seems fishy to me. You can tell who they are since they’re even bigger than dragons.”
That was hard to imagine.
We reached the north hall of the lesser residence and Vyns joined me for lunch.
“Okay,” I said, “my brain is full of world stuff, tell me something meaningless. Or, better yet, give me all the gossip on Saldrea.” I wasn’t usually one for gossip, but I was curious how far he’d go, not that I’d know if he was lying or not.
He blew out a breath and shrugged those big shoulders of his. “Other than the whole strange thing with the titans, Saldrea is an open book. She is what she appears to be, spoiled, entitled, vicious and vindictive, generally annoying.” He seemed lost in thought after that.
I ate my hamburger in peace, happy they had hamburgers here and curious if he’d go on.
When he spoke next it was in a very soft voice, very conspiratorial, only for me. “I guess… there is the rumor that Saldrea’s mother was complicit in killing the previous royal family.”
My jaw dropped, and I only just managed to keep my food in my mouth.
What. The. Hell?
“And they put this woman in power?” I hissed. “How? Why?”
Vyns shrugged. “Got me. Before my time. Though I have a friend who might know. He served the previous royal family. The sense I get is, Valnea — that’s Saldrea’s mother — had a fair amount of power, even back then, and cajoled the crown council into making her the queen regent.”
“How long ago was this?”
“A hundred years or so.”
My jaw dropped again. I closed it quickly.
“Elves live for thousands of years,” Vyns explained. “So do dwarves and undines and dragons. Nymphs can expect to live for a few hundred years, in case you didn’t know.”
Wait… I’d have a long life?
How long was a few hundred years exactly?
I’d have lots of time to find out.
“But you…?” I asked.
“Angels and demons tend to have shorter lives, only a couple hundred years, and that’s stretching it. Most who die of old age are in their one-forties, though many seraphim and salmaeri die much sooner, being on the front lines of our respective wars.”
So, a “short” life was a hundred and forty years?
Wow.
Hooray for magic?
Vyns let me eat in peace after that, while I digested all this information.
After lunch, since I had a bit of time before my water magic class, Vyns strolled with me around campus. We headed north and soon passed out from buildings to a grassy area, a small hill off to our left. In the distance there were bleachers and a sports field.
“What do they play?” I asked. I hoped it was soccer, or something normal, but I had a feeling it wasn’t.
“Dominion.”
Yeah, that sounded right for a “sport” here. I was willing to bet it was somehow brutal and violent.
Vyns led me onto the grass and around the bleachers to watch a practice session in progress as he explained the game.
“The pitch is made of sand and earth, but there is a line made of stone slabs at either end.” Vyns pointed.
The entire area was massive, hundreds of feet across and even longer end to end.
The border was marked by a low fence. Inside I could make out the two lines of stone slabs at each end with still more of the sandy playing surface beyond it.
In the center area were four evenly placed fountains of water and right in the middle was a stand with a fire burning atop it.
Two teams of four were throwing elements at each other, heedless of injury. I shook my head at the rather senseless bloodshed.
“The point of the game is simple,” Vyns went on.
“You need to push all members of the opposing team behind the stone line. First team to do that wins. But just because you’re behind the line doesn’t mean you’re out.
You can’t pass back over it, but you can still summon your element and try to push others out.
If you get pushed out of the pitch entirely… you’re out for good and can’t help.”
“And the school is okay with people getting hurt for sport?” I asked, knowing the answer.
He shrugged. “There are healers nearby.”
“So that’s a yes.” Also… healers… Like I’d done with Myel last night. I still couldn’t believe I’d done that. It seemed so… unreal.
Vyns shrugged. “Compared to the very real wars some of these folks could be fighting, this is relatively harmless.”
Wow. Just… wow.
“You play?”
Vyns shook his head. “I wouldn’t be much good. My element is light, a sub-domain of fire, but… it has no force to push with. I’d just blast holes in people without moving them much.” And the fact that he said that straight-faced made me tremble.
Why was everyone here so… callous, so inured to violence?
Given the wars and the stringent regime of the elves, perhaps that’s just the sort of people this place produced.
Though, Myel wasn’t like that… was he? The fact that I couldn’t answer with certainty only highlighted how much I didn’t know him yet.
And I saw Vyns in a new light now. He may be gorgeous and seemingly kind — to me — but he had a hardness to him. He’d seen war. Then he’d been Saldrea’s bully for however long. I had to imagine that did things to a man.
I took Vyns’ hand, and he smiled surprised, but I didn’t think he’d like what I had in mind. I pulled him behind the bleachers, away from those on the field and far from prying eyes and ears.
“Look me in the eye and tell me the truth, are you really willing to betray Saldrea for me? I can’t imagine she’ll let that slide. What do you get out of this?”