Page 28 of The Sundered Realms

“Yes.”

Abruptly he whirled and glared at her, his ice-lavender eyes hard. Like he somehow knew she was internally sighing and didn’t approve.

Liris was reasonably sure that wasn’t possible, even with magic, or else the danger signs would have been part of her training, but it was hard to keep her limbs from freezing with the long-honed instinct of bracing for judgment.

“You start with invented languages, because they are easy to teach and to apply consistently,” Lord Vhannor told her reprovingly, as though she’d argued with him. “You can get a first-tier license and work as a caster without any knowledge of dead languages—your spells just aren’t likely to be very powerful unless you’ve also specialized in enough other subjects to introduce more layers of complexity to generate that power. The second-tier license is harder to earn.”

Oh! He wasn’t just telling her about the university. He was telling her how to become a caster, and why the steps mattered. His tone wasn’t because he was mad at her; he was still wrestling with how and whether to help her. And yet:

“This sounds like a lot of language learning and not a lot of arranging patterns for spells.”

Lord Vhannor snorted. “You don’t say. Despite the... popular imagination of ‘demon hunters’, it’s why many lose patience well before they ever qualify for consideration at Special Operations.”

Oh. It clicked. “The original caster only has to have in-depth knowledge of a few specific disciplines. But someone who needs to be prepared to dispel any spell has to have an enormous background of knowledge readily available. So: either lots of personal experience like you, or a team with distributed knowledge.”

And Liris’ training did give her an enormous pool of knowledge about languages and cultural patterns to pull from. That was why the Lord of Embhullor could justify the resources it would take to train her as a spellcaster: she was starting behind on knowledge of magic, but way ahead in what took most people the longer time to acquire.

Apparently satisfied that Liris understood his point now without punctuation from his icy visage, he started walking again. And despite the subject, he sounded utterly confident.

Because he wasn’t just any demon hunter; he was the lead demon hunter.

For someone else, that might be a lot of pressure. To be on your own and unable to fail.

Maybe that was what he saw in Liris.

“Exactly,” he said. “Our enemies—specifically, those who create portals to allow demons entry into the realms—have an advantage over us from the start. Any individual caster can learn enough to create a demon portal with much greater ease than an individual caster can dispel any demon portal quickly—“

Then again. Liris interrupted with a sinking heart, “Or else call on a group with a wide enough pool of knowledge to do so. That’s what the university is ultimately for, then: a stable resource of expertise on any possible pattern a demon servant could use.”

He just wanted her as a resource to call on. Just like Serenthuar had, before the elders decided to sacrifice her.

So more studying, and maybe she could be useful enough that they would never sacrifice her. Gods, was that it?

Liris looked down at her feet out of habit, then deliberately into the wild unknown around her.

No more keeping her head down. She would look brazenly into the future.

Lord Vhannor had already told her he wanted her knowledge readily to hand, hadn’t he? At least studying was a thing she knew how to do, and she could at least actually be useful with it this time.

And once she had her bearings in the realms outside Serenthuar, she could get out.

Liris was beginning to wonder if now that she’d started running, she’d ever be able to stop.

“That’s one thing the university is for,” Lord Vhannor said, his cool confidence unchanged.

Strange that her internal cosmic shift hadn’t been noticeable on the outside.

“You asked what to expect,” he said. “Before enrolling at Embhullor students have typically spent years preparing, and you’ll be tested when you arrive to place you in appropriate courses. I know Serenthuar ambassadors don’t have identical expertise, but given your lack of spellcraft education I’m guessing you’ll need to spend more time on the... logistical side of how SRSA operates.”

“If you’re referring to the politics of how you’re able to operate, I doubt it,” Liris said. “I know which realms have fewer portals and worry more about infiltration with stationed garrisons, and which realms have more and keep a standing military to deploy as needed. I know which realms are more hostile to any external intervention including from SRSA, or don’t have formal agreements with SRSA but will deal with you unofficially, and how Gates are connected and defended and the way a visiting diplomat can visit. The permissions for demon hunters and diplomats are generally written in contrast to each other, and I can extrapolate.”

This time it was Lord Vhannor’s turn to pause, though he didn’t look at her. “I thought you hadn’t specialized.”

Hmm. Maybe it was her turn to lecture, for a change. “I haven’t. I finished learning all that years ago, and I received updates to memorize when terms changed. That sort of information is very basic for any ambassadorial candidate in Serenthuar. I could greet you formally in the standards for any government in the Sundered Realms, recognize enough of their languages’ roots to adapt to specific vocabularies and grammars as needed, and rattle off the bedrock of their economies.

“Without specialization, what I can’t tell you is, for instance, what a partner in one realm gifts another, or what they wear to parties or talk about with their friends.”

Lord Vhannor turned all the way around. “So you can be polite to anyone, but you can’t relate to anyone on a personal level without more training?”

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