Page 32 of Cast in Conflict

“Hey!” Glancing in the direction of the voice, she saw Robin frantically waving an arm. He was seated between two Barrani, and as they turned, she saw Serralyn and Valliant. Serralyn’s eyes were still unnaturally green; Valliant’s were the usual green-blue that meant Barrani happiness.

“I have permission to eat dinner here,” Kaylin said, as she made a place for herself on the long student bench.

“You’re not dressed for it.”

“No—but I wasn’t told there was a dress code. I’m not a student; I think the chancellor would cut off both his hands—or both of mine—before he accepted me into the Academia.”

Serralyn laughed. Valliant smiled.

“How’s the first day been?”

“Perfect,” Serralyn replied. She wasn’t—or hadn’t been—the most voluble of speakers when she had been a guest in Kaylin’s home. “The only bad thing so far is that I haven’t been allowed to visit the library.”

“No?”

She shook her head. “There’s a period of three months in which we have to do well enough to prove that we deserve the privilege. You were in the library today.”

“We came from there.”

“And Bellusdeo visits it.”

Kaylin nodded again. “Neither of us are ever going to be students, though. We’re visitors. If we have anything to prove, we proved it on our last visit.”

“I’m not allowed to visit the library,” Robin said cheerfully.

“But you’ve already seen it,” Serralyn pointed out.

He had. But visit wasn’t the word Kaylin would have used to describe it.

“I don’t have any of the books,” he told her. “I don’t think I could read most of them.”

“Me either,” Valliant said, speaking the Elantran that Robin and Kaylin spoke. “There are so. Many. Languages.”

“Are there language classes?”

Robin nodded. “But the best person to teach them is Arbiter Androsse, and he doesn’t technically leave the library—so we have to reach a point where we can take classes in the library. Like, next year.”

The idea that Robin was willing to work his butt off for the privilege of attending classes was a strange one for Kaylin, who had done her level best to avoid ever having to take another one. Some, like the surprisingly and bitterly useful etiquette lessons, had been mandatory, and she’d hated every minute she spent cooling her heels in a class where condescending men and women looked down their noses at her.

And maybe, she thought, she’d deserved some of that. It was not a comfortable thought.

The food was good. She expected that Robin would find almost anything acceptable as long as it was edible—they’d had similar childhoods, and anything was preferable to starvation. But it was simple food, not the fancier Barrani fare that Kaylin could eat but didn’t enjoy. Barrani were often stuck up and arrogant, and even their food could make her feel self-conscious.

She found herself relaxing. This dining hall reminded her of the mess hall in the Halls of Law—except without the carvings and small burn marks on the surfaces of the tables and benches. It was large, and it was—as Starrante had implied—mostly empty. The student body present on the last visit had been largely imprisoned here. They were gone, now.

Only those students like Robin, and there were perhaps five in total, had chosen to remain; Robin had been almost terrified that he, like the rest of the people imprisoned here, would be unwanted. Kaylin understood his fear—she’d felt it herself. He was from the warrens, and she was from the fiefs. They both knew that they didn’t belong, that there were better people.

And what they knew was wrong.

Didn’t stop the doubts, but if a person couldn’t live with a few doubts about themselves, they probably wouldn’t survive long.

Serralyn and Valliant were new; they weren’t the first new admissions, but they were the first to arrive. Packing up the almost nothing they owned had taken no time, and Serralyn was bouncing down the halls in her excitement and anticipation; nothing could have delayed her.

Kaylin thought there was a small chance that Sedarias had tried.

She listened to the three students—Robin, Valliant and Serralyn—as they chattered. To be fair, she mostly listened to Robin and Serralyn; Valliant didn’t talk much. But she believed that his interest in the Academia was genuine; she was certain the Arkon—damn it! the chancellor—wouldn’t have accepted his application if he wasn’t.

She wondered what the dining hall would look like when all of the benches and tables were full. Decided it didn’t matter. Ate while thinking.

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