Chapter 1
It all came down to this.
After eight long years.
Eight years of burying herself in dark and dusty rooms, bent over fragile texts by candlelight.
Eight years of studying and scraping and clawing for every hint of information, every single measly scrap of respect.
Eight years of living on bread and water and grit, desperate to prove that she had what it took to earn her red stole and the privileges that came with it.
Suddenly self-conscious, Camryn glanced down at the creases in her badly faded black robe and hoped the examiners would overlook its shabbiness.
She was a scholar, after all, and they weren’t exactly known for their attention to things like laundry.
She’d at least tamed her long, wheat-blonde hair into a respectable bun and cleaned most of the ink stains from her fingers.
Her nails were still ragged and uneven, but surely they wouldn’t be looking that closely.
Surely her appearance wouldn’t be the reason they denied her. Surely…
The truth was, Ryn couldn’t be sure of anything.
The council had agreed to give her a hearing, but that was all, and the Royal University at Viali only accepted the most acclaimed scholars to its professorate.
Every faculty member must be among the best in their field, even if it seemed that suspiciously few of those “best” were women.
So with that in mind, she’d spent nearly three years on her dissertation, ensuring that her scholarship was beyond reproach.
Traveled to libraries throughout the Five Thrones, begging on her knees for access to treasured ancient texts and calling on every connection her father’s name could provide.
She’d thrown aside the luxuries and lifestyle of her birthright and endured her family’s derision for her chosen pursuit, but now…
All those years of effort were finally about to mean something—about to gain her the one thing she wanted more than anything else in the world. At least, they would once she convinced her colleagues of the value of her work cataloguing the myths and legends of the mysterious land of Dunmaren.
Aside from the night elves who actually lived there, of course, Ryn was now perhaps the greatest living expert on the subject.
Make that the only living expert. It continued to astonish her that none of her fellow scholars seemed to care about such a fascinating field of study.
Despite the perplexing lack of interest, however, her dissertation was as thorough and convincing as she could make it, and it should be sufficient proof—not only of her qualifications, but of the need for further research on the topic.
But that was getting too far ahead of herself.
First, she must submit to scrutiny by an entire council of scholars—a bevy of men older than her father, who had always looked at her askance for her gender, her origins, and her chosen field of study.
She must face the gauntlet of questioning that all professorial candidates endured before being accepted to the faculty.
And she must bear every one of the council’s insults and patronizing comments with patience and decorum.
No glaring, no eye-rolls, no swearing under her breath, and definitely no stabbing, even if they belittled her work.
It was practically a given that they would belittle her gender.
But it would all be worth it if only…
The massive wooden doors before her let out a tortured groan as they swung slowly on their hinges. Ryn leaped to her feet, but it was only the candidate before her emerging from his own questioning, slightly wild-eyed, clutching his robes, and visibly on the verge of tears.
“Rough go?” Ryn asked, trying to sound suitably sympathetic.
“They didn’t ask about the teeth,” Fergal muttered savagely. “All those months of work, and they didn’t ask about the teeth.”
Ryn wasn’t going to ask about the teeth either.
“Do you know how many dreams I’ve had about teeth?” the other scholar all but shouted. “Do you?”
“No?” She hoped that was the right answer, but it was difficult to tell with Fergal.
“Teeth!” he whispered hoarsely. “So many teeth.”
Ryn tried to smile without showing hers and wished there wasn’t a bench behind her knees so she could back away slowly. Thanks to his research, Fergal had spent a lot more time among the dead than among the living, and she feared it was beginning to show.
“Well, at least it’s over now,” she said, trying for a soothing tone.
“Is it?” Fergal ran a trembling hand through his already disordered dark curls. “Will it ever be over? Will there ever be an end, or will they go on tugging their beards and saying ‘maybe’ forever?”
To Ryn’s immense relief, the senior scholar immediately pivoted and moved off down the hallway, his muttering echoing off the stone floor and the high, arched ceiling as he fled the scene of his disappointment.
The committee’s apparently lackluster response to Fergal certainly didn’t bode well for Ryn’s chances, but at least her research had somewhat broader appeal.
Most Abreians were still fascinated—albeit in a mortally terrified sort of way—with stories about night elves.
Fergal, on the other hand, had chosen to study the effects of dietary stagnation on the health and longevity of the first Abreian immigrants, and his conversations on the topic had sent more than one of his fellow scholars desperately searching for an exit.
“Are you ready, or do you intend to stand there gawking all day?”
The acerbic voice broke through Ryn’s contemplation and brought her head whipping around with an audible crack from her spine. Too many hours bent over her books had apparently given her the neck of an eighty-year-old.
“Yes! I mean, I’m ready,” she blurted out, lurching into motion towards the open doors.
Goodness, you’d think she was little better than an awkward child instead of a noblewoman of nearly thirty years of age.
She’d been to court, had tea with the queen, and knew how to dance and curtsy and smile while making polite conversation about nothing.
But here she was, stammering and blushing like an idiot just because some crusty old professor frowned at her.
Slow down, Ryn. Be dignified. You’re smart, you’ve worked hard, and you’re ready for this. You have to be.
She couldn’t fail. Not now. Not when she was so close to answers.
One deep breath, and then she stepped through the doors into the examination hall.
It was long and narrow, with cool stone floors, bare walls, and gorgeous patterned glass windows—a rare sight in the temperate climate of Iria.
At the far end of the room was a long table resting on a raised platform, and behind that table, the five senior members of the professorate who would decide her fate.
Five bearded faces stared down at her as she strode forward, doing her level best to project confidence. Five pairs of eyes assessed her—from the wayward tendrils of hair that had escaped her otherwise neat bun, to her rumpled robes, to her scuffed boots.
She wouldn’t apologize for the boots. They were warm and comfortable and kept out the rain.
“Thank you for your time and consideration,” she said politely as she came to a stop in front of the council and bowed her head in respect. “I am Camryn Halivard, and today I would like to…”
“Yes, we know what you would like to do,” the man in the center interrupted.
Hapscombe. The most respected authority on early Abreian history, not only in the Royal University but in all the Five Thrones.
The one whose approval Ryn needed most. “You wish to waltz into this university on the strength of your family’s money and position, indulge in incomplete and inferior scholarship, and then rob one of your more deserving fellow scholars of a place among the professorate so that you can continue to wallow in the same overwrought theorizing as your father before you. ”
Ryn’s mouth dropped open. “I… No, that’s not it at all. If you only read my paper…”
She was interrupted yet again.
“Yes, we’ve all read your paper.”
Ryn hadn’t heard that much scorn packed into a single word since her aunt announced that true ladies did not engage in fisticuffs. Right after eight-year-old Ryn had given her cousin a black eye for calling her a liar.
Unfortunately, punching was almost as bad as stabbing, and giving a professor a black eye was probably not going to help her case.
“This paper, as you call it, is nothing but a work of fiction,” one of the other five pronounced, leaning forward and glaring at Ryn over the tops of his square, gold-rimmed spectacles.
“I can assure you, it is not,” Ryn returned a little heatedly. “I have done eight years of painstaking research on this topic, and there is not a single authoritative source I have not analyzed at great length.”
“Authoritative?” The man on the far right end of the table sniffed in derision, then wiped his beard fastidiously with a handkerchief. “On the subject of fairy stories?”
“We at the Royal University are dedicated to the recording, the preservation, and the study of facts,” Hapscombe said, with the sneering, condescending sort of tone he usually reserved for children or the illiterate. “Not the wild speculation of feckless adventurers and uncouth mercenaries.”
“And which of those was my father?” Ryn shot back, her temper momentarily overriding her better sense.
“Ah yes, the dear departed Baron.” The man on Hapscombe’s left was clearly not one of her father’s many former friends.
“The man who devoted his life to ‘studying’ his obsessions and hallucinations. And who then bribed the university into accepting his daughter as a scholar despite her lack of qualifications.”
“He did not hallucinate!” Ryn protested, taking a firm grip on her skirts to prevent accidental punchings. “And I took the same entrance exam as everyone else. Placed in the top five scores of my year.” She’d been quite proud of that, even if no one else had.