As children descended of noble men are considered nobility themselves, the "breeding stock" of the future may, in turn, be able to wed with royal blood without divine repercussion or further tainting the royal, Graced bloodline.
âTides and Times of Surikhand, an histoire by Setja Asmaradan
17
â NAMES AND FACES â
Isla ran as fast as she could, and still it was not enough. But for a young girl who looked to have never run in her life, the others had left her far behind. Only Master Chendra's encouragement remained in the distance. All in the breathing ... keep it controlled ... Isla brushed away his words along with a stray hair from her forehead. It was easy for him to say, sat in the shade on his saggyâ
'Inhale! Exhale!'
Thanks for the advice. Her head thumped with heat despite the cold air that slapped against her cheeks. She forced a smile for the girl behind her, who was miraculously faring worse than even Isla. Another lap of this and they can plant two frangipani on the field.
'Stop, stop.' Master Chendra yelled from ahead, arms waving over his head like a madman. 'You may as just stop. The others will be well across the Ters Altum by the time you two finish!'
The others had not spent five hours last night standing in the presence of two first-rank theurgists, Isla thought resentfully. She had woken that morning with legs sore and weak.
'I thought we were supposed to have combat training today!' the other girl protested as Master Chendra met them.
'This is combat training! Its first step is to build stamina.'
'At five in the morning!'
'If you'd only wake this early more often, perhaps you'd be in better form by now! How are you expecting to find a suitor in your current state? Haven't you seen your competitors?'
That was especially unkind, even for Master Chendra. The girl stalked away to the edge of the field. 'Being cruel does not help your students,' said Isla. 'Not all of us are as resilient as others.'
'Don't you think I know that, girl? How many urchins do you think have passed through my care? I was cruel, I take no pleasure in that, but so is this world. If Winda there cannot handle a few harsh words from me, how do you think she would fare against a husband who barely knows or cares for her?'
Isla folded her arms over her chest, pretending not to feel scolded.
'You have a sharp tongue, Lilja,' said Master Chendra, this time more gently. 'One day it will be the end of you. You'll need a miracle finding a man who would tolerate such a willful spirit.'
'Fortunately, that is not your problem. I believe I came here for combat training, not marriage advice from a lonely old man.'
Master Chendra chuckled, but the laugh did not reach his eyes. He punished her for her impertinence, having her spend the next half hour in a half-kneeling, half-crouching position; back straight and fists held before her.
The resting shield stance, Master Chendra told her, mumbling as he left, 'I'll give you combat training.'
Isla distracted herself from her aching calves by practicing her mental shields. Meditation came easy for her now, especially with a view of the rising sun.
She erected her walls the way Eshe had taught her. Brick by brick, layer by layer. She had grown fast, now, and they burst like geysers around her spring. Its force warmed her just as well as the morning rays.
She experimented with finer tendrils, coaxing them into webs soft and delicate, ready to spring into life at the gentlest of intrusions. She imagined herself a spider, spinning stone into silk, but she was a fledgling still and her threads were fragile; sand slipping through fingers. Again and again she wove them into life, until the warmth in her head turned to a tender heatâ
'I said change positions!' Master Chendra's shadow fell over her. Isla blinked and looked around. The other girls had returned, though she did not know for how long.
They had all settled into an upright stance, leaving Isla yet again the last amongst her peers. As expected, Phrae was sneering at her over her own perfectly executed recoiling shield.
Thus the hour passed, slower even than the previous night's audience. Stance after stance, 'building leg muscle and balance,' Master Chendra explained. Their real combat training was to be provided by an officer of the Queen's Cabal, but that was a lesson for another day.
Isla had to rely on Tran to walk her to the athenaeum once their morning exercises were through. Her knees were weak and she could not take a step without buckling.
'Are you sure you don't want to join us?' Tran asked once Isla had made herself comfortable on a divan. 'Phrae's managed to convince one of the younger tutors to oversee us while we test our theurgy.'
'I can barely stand.' It was not the first time she had to decline Tran's invitation, and Isla was starting to feel like a terrible friend.
'There's going to be an inspection in two weeks.' Tran dropped her voice to a whisper. There were other students on the floor, ambling from aisle to aisle, but the two of them were alone in their quiet corner. 'Phrae overheard a couple tutors talking. They're going to test how far we've got with our theurgy. Next month, she reckons.'
'We've not even been here for a turn. They haven't taught us that much at all. Phrae can barely conjure smoke.'
'Exactly. We want to be prepared.'
'All I'm saying is, it won't be surprising if many fail.'
Tran sighed and sat beside her. She wouldn't meet Isla's eyes when she said, 'Phrae's right, you know. You're falling behind in everything.'
'You heard that?' What else of last night's conversation had she heard?
'I'm sorry. I just don't want you stuck here or, Wise Father forbid, at the Water Palace!'
'I appreciate your honesty. But that's why I asked you to take me here. I wanted to study for our next lesson.' She had much to catch up on, despite how tedious the subject matter. Etiquette and Articulation. She had never heard of anything more pompous.
She watched Tran exit the athenaeum, wishing she could join her. Practicing theurgy would be much more exciting than completing her week's assignment, though she knew for a fact that, when it came to theurgy, she could outperform the others.
She had several hours before her next lesson. Isla spent the next few flying through one tome after another, compiling similarities and differences between Surikh and Napoic cultures in communication.
Apparently, the Napoii were a lot less suffocating when it came to expressing themselves. They had a passion for letters â love letters, celebratory letters, there was a letter for every occasion.
The writer made it seem a shameful thing, using words such as flamboyant and histrionic. The book hardly gave her anything the two kingdoms had in common. It was as though the writer was opposed to the very idea that Surikhand and Napoa could share any similarities.
Isla tossed the useless volume aside and picked up the next â a compilation of various tools for communication. Nothing relevant to her assignment, but the book distracted her briefly. She flicked back and forth between its pages. There was a particularly intriguing snippet on speaking with one's fingers; another through smoke signals. She was about to put the book away when a word caught her eye.
Enoptograph.
She had forgotten what Rajini Dhvani's device had been called, but she recognised it the moment she read it.
Receptacle of a runic snare. Communication by reflection. Its crafting now prohibited.
Why would such a useful object be prohibited? It made no sense to Isla. Though she supposed if anything should be prohibited, it would be something associated to the term runic snare.
Whatever that is.
Curiosity got the better of her. Isla's knees protested as she forced herself up. There was a small section on runes on the main floor of the athenaeum, which she soon discovered only contained the most general information on the subject. She found only one mention of a snare, and that was merely to explain that its creation had been outlawed for three generations.
'Is this all you have on runes?' she asked a passing archivist.
'Fourth tier, east wing. Second row from the back.'
Four flights of stairs later and Isla was reconsidering her decision. This had better be worth it. She fell against a shelf for support. Dust rose from the impact and Isla hurried on down the aisle, sneezing the motes away. It seemed not many academy students were interested in runes. A cobweb had grown in the corner of one shelf, the semi-circular window at the end of the aisle was coated in grime, and the books smelled of mould and dampness.
She went through a dozen books before she found an entire chapter on runic snares. The first page was torn; she could only make out the lower half of an illustration and a partial introduction.
... was first known to man when Svladojan the Severe succeeded in his life-long enterprise of harvesting the draining nature of the epperstrom. This aspect of the epps did he cultivate and imbue into an object of his creation now known as a trapping rune.
Isla turned the torn page, where it continued:
... which when perfectly initiated, absorbs the ability of the sacrificial theurgist and transfers it into a suitable object, otherwise known as a snare.
If given the suitable inscriptions, this snare should be able to contain the thus absorbed ability, and summon it when correctly triggered by a theurgist.
The subject whose ability is snared loses his theurgy as a result and, in almost all cases, does not survive the trapping.
A trapping. She saw the mirror clearly in her mind. Had it not been her first thought upon seeing Rajini Dhvani's enoptograph at work? As though a chronurgist had been trapped inside the glass.
Isla had not expected to be on target. Or even close to it.
A chronurgist was not trapped behind the mirror. Only his power.
How does the rajini come to be in possession of a prohibited object? It would not be readily available amongst the merchants. Did she have it commissioned? Does she have a runesmith in her employ?
Is that what she wanted from her?
The thought sent a shiver through Isla's core, and she shut the book with a force that sent a grey cloud scattering before her face.
Eshe had said her theurgy was rare, and there was no denying it was powerful. What wonders would it do for a queen ... But that can't be right, Isla decided. Haana never knew what my theurgy was. Not even I did. Dhvani couldn't have known about my power to hunt me for it.
Isla descended the stairs absently, hugging her acquired tome. She was close to getting her answers â she could feel it â but the one she clutched against her breast was not it.
The tower bell chimed for the morning's class as the desk clerk carded her. Isla resisted the temptation to flick through her book during her next lesson. Their Etiquette and Articulation mentor was, as the subject typically suggested, a strict and overbearing woman who put even Noi to shame.
Much to Isla's disappointment, Mistress Breja did not collect their reports that day, or even check to see their progress. The lesson was spent instead on dance. Apparently it was basic etiquette for a lady to know how to dance, and as the Rising Year celebration was fast approaching, it was doubly important they mastered its art.
While hardly any of the students would be invited for the festivities at the Grand Palace, the academy held an annual celebration of its own, and all the young palace guards would be invitied.
'An utter waste of time,' Tran said under her breath, just loud enough for Isla to hear. They had been paired for the lesson, much to Isla's relief, for Tran was an excellent dancer and, unlike Winda who kept stepping on Phrae's feet, made for a natural lead. 'We had to learn last year, too, for all the good it did us.'
That's right. She had forgotten. Tran's been here for almost two years.
'Everyone was too afraid to actually dance with anyone.'
'I'm sure the men had been more forward.' Isla chuckled at the thought of it; girls huddling in one corner and boys on the other like petrified wood.
'Cowards, the lot of them. Blushing from ear to ear. Sooner volunteer for war than ask a girl to dance. A few had the balls to ask, but I wouldn't count on it. Most needed a fair deal of drink before they had the guts â or lost their minds â enough to ask.'
'This year you can be at the Grand Palace. Serving, I'll grant you, so no dancing either, but ... have you decided whether you'd join me?'
'I don't have a choice, do I? I'll never find a suitor in time. This may be the last chance I have of finding a patron.'
'Even if you don't, it isn't the end. You're eighteen, now. You can take the Civil Servants Examination once they are held.'
'What if I fail?'
'Then you try again the next year. Perhaps spending a year at the Water Palace will not be so bad.'
It was the first time Isla saw Tran look so worried. The girl even missed a step. 'I hear they have iron bars over the windows and keep vicious dogs to scour the premises for runaway girls. I hear they even have a dungeon to keep the realm's most wicked criminals.'
A dungeon? 'I doubt those rumours are true. But there's only one way to find out, isn't there? We shall have to go for a visit ourselves.'
'You're out of your mind.' The music ended and Tran's voice rung across the room. Mistress Breja glowered at them from the end of the hall. Tran dropped her voice to a whisper as they switched leads. 'We can't visit the Water Palace.'
Mistress Breja nodded towards a square old man with a dulcimer, and he resumed to the next song.
'Of course we can,' Isla said under the steady beat of Mistress Breja's instructions. 'We have the rest of the week free in preparation for the Rising Year, and we can leave the palace so long as we have a mentor to escort us.'
'Who is going to escort us? Who would give us a pass?' Tran challenged, not unkindly.
Isla smiled. 'You leave that with me.'
â â â