1. Chapter One #3
It probably would. Rafi glanced down to the dirt and the aer in it.
He was strong enough to sense it and be offered a future, but that also meant he couldn’t be trusted to go through aedis alone.
He took another breath to feel aer ebb and flow around him and to try to be a stone in a river and not a leaf in a current.
“I can’t afford to hire someone,” he confessed, then jerked his head up in shock when this was met with a dismissive tut instead of pity or commiseration.
“Tell me, is there anyone here or in the capital who appeals to you? Someone whose scent you are aware of? Someone who also uses aer and can control it? Even if you believe they will say no or they’re a student at another school or even an instructor here.
You will want anyone when the time comes, or so my wife tells me, but it will go easier with someone you want.
Maybe this will only need to be for a few times, but surely there is someone who smells pretty to you that you can stand such contact with. ”
In another time, Briene using the word ‘contact’ to describe fucking would have been a tale Rafi would have been happy to relate to his friends.
“It doesn’t matter how out of reach you think they are,” Briene continued, mortifying Rafi further in his attempt to be kind.
“If you have a list of candidates or only one, tell me, and I’ll see what I can do.
Your other instructors will likely also be willing to ask around.
You are a valued student here, Tizzan. You should know that. Name someone and—”
“Viau.” It burst from Rafi before he could bite it back and tamp it down like the earth beneath his feet. Impossible. A choice to land Rafi in an isolation room and from there to some other, less prestigious academy and an undistinguished life of a swersoldi for some unknown family.
Maybe that was a better future. Quiet and uneventful, where his parents and siblings would truly forget him but at least his money and career would be his own. Maybe he ought to do that anyway, and he wasn’t meant to be in a school that had given the country someone like Viau.
“Viau?” Briene echoed, his astonishment so obvious Rafi would have blushed if he hadn’t already been stewing in humiliation.
Briene had every reason to be surprised.
Rafi had just wished for the impossible.
A miné like Viau probably had such offers all the time.
He would have nobleminé and miná and nex yearning for him and sighing over the stories of him.
That was likely why Viau kept rooms at Trianon the way some of the other palace swersoldi did despite their high assignments; it must offer him refuge from all his admirers.
Since the tradition of aer-trained guards had begun a few centuries before, the swersoldi had created legends, and though times were more peaceful than they once had been, swersoldi remained.
Gifted fighters, trained to use and control aer in small ways, educated to belong in the highest courts.
Meant to protect nobles and therefore live alongside them, where many a famous, or infamous, romance had developed—at least according to songs and tales.
Viau was the ideal, one of those who would end up in a song if he hadn’t already.
He was noble, like Rafi, but from a family tied to the king’s.
He’d had a noble bearing before he’d ever arrived at the academy, so it was said, and control of his aer already too.
He’d probably received childhood lessons, because his family was wealthy enough to pay for such tutors and cared about him.
He dressed well, and wore his sword with confidence that was earned, according to instructors.
He used aer in the same manner, with enough power that he might have been a mage but had chosen to be a guard instead for reasons of his own.
He’d allegedly fought in at least one duel, and that had been on behalf of a friend and not even for himself, and then had shown mercy to the loser, so his reputation was unblemished.
He worked in the palace with the royal family.
Not personally, not assigned to the king himself day and night, but that was likely a matter of waiting for some older swersoldi to retire.
And, unlike many who stopped once they left the academy, he read and wrote, and was said to spend time with poets and playwrights.
He was a dream as far as Rafi was concerned, and that was before Rafi thought of the near-black curls that formed a perfect waterfall between his shoulder blades, or the sparkle in his dark eyes, or his grin and the neat beard and mustache, or his form.
Impossible Viau. Too good to even wish for.
But he smelled of spring, like aer itself, though aer had more presence than scent.
He was blossoms and buzzing bees to Rafi’s senses, and Rafi had never been more aware of it than he had been just that morning, lost in the warm-honey of Viau’s scent as Viau had passed by in a narrow corridor, engaged in conversation with Instructor Daloit.
Rafi had watched him for a long moment, frozen, then jolted and ducked out of sight in case Viau suddenly turned to see Rafi’s humiliating physical reaction.
Rafi had blamed it on exhaustion, upon being so close to Viau for the first time, on perhaps his loneliness. Anything but what he now realized it must be.
“I will meditate more,” Rafi assured Briene quickly.
“I do not expect Viau. It’s only that you said…
I’m sure many ask for Viau. I’ll manage on my own.
” He tried a smile, as though he wasn’t flushing hot with too many embarrassments to count.
“It might only be the once and then I’ll find someone. I’ll speak with the healers.”
“And they will tell you what I told you, almost certainly.” Briene had hidden most of his astonishment over Rafi’s choice and apparently decided to focus on practicalities again.
“An instructor, then,” Rafi tossed out, fearing his desperation was growing obvious.
“I won’t mind. I object to none of them.
” Not strictly a lie. He might not want them, but he didn’t object.
That was less horrifying than the idea of Briene or someone else approaching Viau with this matter and knowing Viau would not know who Rafi was and also, very probably, not care.
“Instructor Briene.” Rafi tried again to find strength in the world around him and to hold onto the strength.
He was a fourth child, but they wanted him here.
He must learn control. That was all there was to it.
“I will accept the words of a healer on the matter. And if an instructor cannot be found, then I’ll manage on my own. ” He must, so he would.
“Tizzan,” Briene began.
Rafi smiled, stiff but polite. “I should go clean and change, and then I will speak to a healer. You have my word.” A fourth child nex of a minor noble family did have some honor, at least.
He could sense the slight intake of aer, possibly reflex, as Briene considered arguing, but then he sighed and waved Rafi on. “Talk to them today, and I’ll make sure you did.”
He didn’t mention Viau again.