Chương 14

The narrow stream passed through the first brass ring and struck the inner edge of the second. A handful of water broke free. It landed on the slate floor beside Elara's shoe. Wordlessly, Mistress Aveline Rohe, Elara's water magic instructor, made a mark on her tablet. Mentally smacking herself for getting distracted and pushing back the memory of Rook's face as he stared down at her, Elara reduced the flow by a fraction.

Three shapes remained suspended over the basin: a sphere, a flattened disc, and a six-sided figure with edges that required continual correction. The remaining water had to pass through four rings at different heights. Each ring was scarcely wider than her thumb. The stream cleared the second. Elara directed it upwards. Pressure gathered behind her eyes. The task wasn't particularly hard, Elara noted. Just tedious.

The water mostly obeyed her instruction, though some sections of the exercise required repetition and a great deal more mana than she would have liked. For that reason, she was forced to divide her control over the separate masses into parts, hold them separately, before forcing them to occur together. The sphere sagged while she corrected the stream. The disc thickened at one edge.

Elara restored both before either lost its assigned form, measuring her expenditure some more and finding it still higher than she preferred. Across the practical room, a young lord guided his stream through the rings with his hand resting at his side. His natural affinity for water magic made the task much more trivial for him. Elara looked back at her own basin. The third ring was higher than the others. She narrowed the stream until it ran fine as sewing silk, raised it, and adjusted its course twice.

The water entered the centre without touching brass.

"Continue," Mistress Rohe said. Her voice was low and plain. She wore a dark green teaching coat with the sleeves fastened above the wrist, appearing rather practical. No rings, no lace, no unnecessary ornament. A stern poise, quite fitting for her personality. Elara guided the stream towards the final ring. The morning's first lesson had required much less effort than this one.

Instructor Rayne Dahl, a narrow man in a scholar's black coat, had introduced himself as a Third-Circle Wind mage and spent the first two hours establishing the first-term curriculum: Mana theory. Magical law. The history of recognised arcane practice. Each subject presented in definitions, exceptions, and assigned readings. Elara had known most of it before enrolling in the school. When she was fourteen, her eldest sister and then tutor, Celia, had required written recitations on magical liability.

By sixteen, Elara could distinguish the principal legal restrictions on harmful workings in Crown land, chartered districts, and private estates. Instructor Dahl's lecture, hence, could only serve for her as a revision of lessons already learned. He had tested the room with questions. The noble students answered first. Several civic students answered after them. One fellow in his mid-twenties dressed in guild brown gave a better account of commercial ward law than anyone else present, including Elara.

Dahl had recorded the answers without comment. After the first two hours, the class was then divided according to magical affinity. Elara and the other Water Mages followed an attendant down a tiled passage to a long room containing basins, floor drains, and brass rings suspended from the ceiling. A dozen students assembled there. Most were near Elara's age, though two appeared old enough to have held trades before seeking formal instruction. Mistress Rohe had given her name then and Circle — third.

Then she had described the evaluation. Each student was required to draw water from a basin, separate sediment from it, and hold several moving shapes simultaneously, before guiding a narrow stream through suspended rings without touching the sides. Aside from the tediousness of the task, Elara did still find it mostly trivial. A second mark went onto Rohe's tablet as Elara's stream approached the final ring at a slight downward angle. She corrected too sharply.

One corner of the six-sided shape collapsed, and the sphere lost volume as water fed back into the basin. Elara restored the corner. Her left hand remained open beside her hip, fingers loose. The effort was contained in her jaw, fixed shoulders, and the mana expenditure building behind her eyes. The stream passed through the last ring. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Release in order," Rohe said. Elara withdrew the narrow stream first and returned it to the basin. The disc followed, then the six-sided figure. She held the sphere for one additional count before letting it collapse. Water struck water with a soft slap. Mistress Rohe examined the basin. The sediment remained collected at the bottom in a compact brown patch.

"Acceptable separation," she said.

"Your simultaneous control degrades under direction changes."

"Yes, Mistress."

"Headache?"

"A minor one." Rohe added another mark.

"You may sit." Elara stepped away from the basin. Her heel cleared the fallen handful from earlier. She took a place along the wall and folded her hands, placing her right thumb over the crescent her own fingernail had imprinted into her palm. Others went after her. A merchant's son produced poor shapes and an excellent stream. Two noblewomen completed every stage with little visible effort. One of them allowed sediment to rise when she drew from the basin, then removed it while maintaining the moving forms.

Mistress Rohe marked the correction and directed her to the wall. Training declared itself quickly. Control could be measured in duration, loss, contamination, and contact with the rings. The tablet received each result in the same black strokes. A young woman with a thin face approached the last open basin. A small guild badge was fastened to her collar. Her gown had been altered at the cuffs, leaving a darker line where the old stitching had been removed. She set both hands against the rim.

The first draw came too fast. Water rose in a thick rope, twisted, and spilled across the basin's edge. The woman stopped it before any reached the floor. A few students glanced at one another. She tried again. This time the water lifted cleanly. Sediment followed it for half a handspan before falling back. The separation remained imperfect, with fine grit turning the lower portion cloudy, though the working itself stayed intact. Mistress Rohe watched from two paces away.

"Proceed." The woman formed a sphere. The second shape came slowly and settled into a disc. Her attempt at the six-sided figure produced four stable edges and two that rounded whenever she attended to anything else. Her lips moved with a count. Elara recognised the method — perhaps one instruction assigned to each breath. Hold the sphere. Correct the disc. Restore the upper edge. Begin again. The stream entered the first ring. It touched the second hard enough to produce a clear brass note. The woman flinched.

Her sphere burst and struck the floor.

"Continue," Rohe said. Water ran around the woman's shoes and reached the nearest drain. She kept the disc, drew a new stream, and guided it through the second ring. Then the third. At the fourth, her hand started to shake. The stream struck brass. She withdrew it, formed it again, and missed by less.

"Release," Rohe said. The student returned the water to the basin. Colour had risen along her throat. She faced Mistress Rohe and waited.

"Insufficient separation. Two stable forms under divided attention. Directional control is developing." Rohe wrote on the tablet.

"You will practise the first and fourth exercises. Repetition before complexity."

"Yes, Mistress." The woman walked to the wall. No one spoke to her. Talent had little to do with what she had just watched. The difference was time. Elara had received her first Arcana instruction when she was twelve, and the work had been intensive. For her, wealth had purchased a head start.

Unlike the less fortunate low-born, a noble was often tested young for a gift for magecraft and tutored from the first flicker of it — a five years' head start was common, often ten, with regular practice, patient instructors and no other work wanted of them. Guilds or parishes in comparison found their gifted children late, if at all, and were usually forced to cut corners in the development of their talents. Such were the realities of the system, and the effects compounded.

The Academy ranked its intakes by what each student could show on the day, and would never once ask who had bought the years of preparation before the day. The upper groups would read like a page from the peerage, and the Academy could call it merit and be, in the narrowest sense, correct. Mistress Rohe completed the remaining evaluations. Once the last basin had been emptied, she stood at the front table and reviewed her tablet.

Then, as the students began to arrange themselves by habit — Nobles to nobles, commoners to commoners — she read out the instructional divisions. The strongest students were placed first. Their names belonged largely to houses Elara recognised. The weaker groups contained several students whose badges or plain coats identified other sponsors. Elara's name appeared in the upper middle.

"Lady Elara Vey. Lady Celine Marr. Jory Pell." A pause followed. Short enough to pass as the turning of a page. A young woman near the centre stepped forward. Celine Marr had brown hair secured at the nape and a square face with an outdoor complexion. Her gown was well made and cut for repeated wear. River-barony money, Elara judged. A moment later, Jory Pell left the group by the door. He was lean, with blue staining beneath two fingernails and a guild badge sewn to his collar.

His coat fitted through the shoulders and hung too loosely at the waist. The three of them assembled beside the nearest basin.

"Your exercise results complement one another," Mistress Rohe said.

"Lady Marr has the strongest divided control. Lady Vey has better separation. Pell has the best directional correction of the three. You will practise together for the first month." Celine inclined her head.

"Understood, Mistress." Jory did the same.

"Yes, Mistress Rohe." Elara gave the required acknowledgement. Rohe gave additional details before moving on to the next names. Celine turned towards Elara. Her attention passed once over Elara's gown, then settled on her face. The assessment was open and brief.

"Lady Elara," she said.

"Since we've been assigned the eastern practice room on Thirdday, I believe it prudent we decide on a schedule now. I take the first hour after breakfast, if that suits." Civil. Practical. No declaration of friendship attached.

"That hour is suitable," Elara said. Jory waited until both noblewomen had spoken before nodding in agreement. The noon bell sounded beyond the practical rooms. Mistress Rohe closed her tablet and dismissed them for the meal interval. Celine collected her books. Jory held the door without making a display of it. Elara walked out between them, with the headache keeping time behind her eyes.