The morning came, though the wall-mounted clock in the living room was my only means of knowing. Of course Daegwin woke me, so the clock was really for her benefit rather than mine.

I had some time before I was expecting Master Orjeik, so I decided to check on Timoth. I didn't know how I was going to do it, as I assumed that he was in the men’s district of the Royal Quarters, but I assumed that a guard would be able to lead me in the right direction.

Before I set out, Daegwin made me breakfast and I told her to clear the extraneous beds from her room and have a pennant made for the front of my home.

I dressed myself in a blouse and earthen skirt, and decided it was time to get back into my morning habits. I put some red into my cheeks and some darkness around my eyes, and I had Daegwin assist me in putting my hair into a curved braid. It was a complicated hairstyle, but I wanted to signify to myself that I was ready to become a noblewoman again. The only concession I made was in favour of flat-heeled shoes, as I was uncertain how much walking would be required to reach Timoth.

In the end, it was not so much. The men and women may have been segregated, but it was a distance of only a few city blocks.

I’d expected to be stopped by a guard at the entrance to the men's section of the city, but I was allowed passage. The guards said that women were allowed to pass freely through the men's part of the Royal Quarter, but not vice versa. It was a long-standing Hollowhold tradition, apparently, and I did not presume to question it.

Timoth's house was easily marked by the sky blue and white pennant. I wondered if he'd brought it with him or had had it made already. I knocked on his door, and he answered.

'Saemara,' he said. 'Come in.'

I entered his house and he closed the door behind me. His house was identical to mine. The entire Royal Quarter was carved from one mould, it seemed, although Timoth had brought some life to his living room. Swords were crossed on the wall, and a shield with the Tfaeller colours hung above the staircase.

'Nice house,' I said. 'Mine's the same.'

'Are you settling in?' he asked me. His voice was laced with concern, and had none of the underlying venom that I had become used to since leaving Trackford. Maybe it’d been the horrors of the journey and the burden of command that had shortened his temper. He added, 'I like what you've done with your hair.'

It was that comment that solidified my suspicions. I would have hugged him, had the servants not been watching, but I was content to use words instead.

'Oh, Timoth. I'm sorry we fought. It was so hard for me. I've never been on such a journey before!'

'Nor I, sister,' he conceded. 'And now I find myself in a place of safety I regret some of the things that passed between us.'

'As do I,' I said. Tears welled in my eyes, and it was all I could do to halt their position between my eyelids. 'We both made mistakes, but they were difficult circumstances.'

'They were indeed,' Timoth said. 'I do not blame you for anything, least of all Wargwa's death. Even I did not know that lighting the fire would anger the faeries so; I had no more than the stories to make me suspicious.'

'And I do not blame you for taking us into the Dreadwood Forest, by the same token,' I lied. I did blame him. But I could also forgive him. He had not known the true extent of the dangers, even if it had been the wrong decision to take that risk.

I realised that things were uncomfortably emotional between us, and I spoke to lighten the mood. 'I'll be sure to keep an eye open for a young lady with blue hair for you.'

Timoth laughed anxiously. 'I would be grateful if we were to never speak of the nymphs again.'

We laughed together for a minute and then he walked to his chest, which lay in the corner of the living room. He opened it and withdrew a handful of gold and silver coins. 'This is your half of the money Father gave us. I trust you to spend it wisely, and to have some left at the end of our two years. Mother suggested that I might ration it for you, but I believe you capable of better judgement than she gives you credit for.'

I took the coins from his hand gratefully. 'Thank you, Timoth.' I caught a glimpse of the time on his wall-mounted clock.

‘I’d best be returning to my chambers. My first portalmancy lesson begins in half an hour.'

'Already! Well, I'm not surprised. I told Mother that you'd prove yourself. And that reminds me: you may keep my boot-knife. We are uncomfortably separate, in our new quarters, and I'd sleep better knowing that you had a blade close to hand. Consider it yours now.'

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I smiled. 'Thank you again, Timoth. I'm so grateful that you came with me. I'd be so lost without you!'

'I do not think that you would be,' Timoth said. 'Yet I am also glad. The experiences we have endured may have been difficult at the time, but they will prepare me for rulership better than any classroom ever could have.'

I put the coins in my bedside table, concealed under a heavy tome on the Borderlands conflict and desert nomad history. I scarcely had time to head back downstairs before there was a knock on the door.

Master Orjeik.

I took a seat at the living room table as Daegwin showed the Master in. He sat opposite me and spoke softly, but with confidence. 'My lady, perhaps we should begin by having you summon a portal so that I may see what level of progress you are at.'

I hoped that my makeup hid my embarrassment. 'Alas, I have not yet been able to produce a portal.'

'That is most interesting. You look to be almost of age. If I may ask, my lady, how old are you?'

'It is still early in my sixteenth year,' I said, trying to make myself sound as young as possible. Trying to reduce the extent of my failure.

'Well, never fear. It is true that you are slightly beyond the usual age for a noblewoman who has yet to summon a portal, but there is no time limit for learning! Shall we begin, my lady?' he suggested.

'What would you have me do?' I asked him.

'Looking around,' he said, scanning the room with his eyes as if to prove his point, 'this room seems barren. Do you have something you can bring that would make you comfortable? It will be easier for you to summon a portal if you can relax.'

I thought for a moment.

'One minute,' I said, and then ascended the stairs to my bedroom. I returned brandishing my family portrait. I stood it on the table between myself and Master Orjeik.

'That should suffice,' Orjeik said. Then he looked at me. 'Try summoning a portal for me, my lady.'

I sighed with the anticipation of disappointment, but then considered how I had changed in recent days. I’d experienced more in the past fortnight than in the entire rest of my life, and Id emerged a different person. Or so I thought.

At least, I could give portalmancy another try. I closed my eyes – but then opened, them remembering that I had been doing it wrong by closing them. I restrained another sigh, and tried again, this time with my eyes open.

I took in the smells of the house, the sights of the living room, the sounds of the Royal Quarter, the touch of the wood grain of the table under my fingertips. I tried to be conscious of it all at once, and what it all meant. The royal quarter was just one large piece of stone separated from another by belief and the King's Guards. The wood grain was just dead tree, chipped and flattened by a carpenter. Then, I focused on what lay beyond. The portal realm. I tried to will the portal into existence.

Nothing.

I sighed again. I had been wrong to expect a different result just because I'd fought some nymphs.

Master Orjeik took my hand and said, 'your worry is what is holding you back. Though it might help if you tell me what you are thinking when you try to summon a portal.'

I was shocked that he'd grabbed my hand. Touching a noblewoman was not something that was acceptable for a servant to do, but I said nothing. Perhaps it was his handsomeness, or perhaps it was simply that I suspected that Masters were held in higher esteem in the capital, but I said nothing.

His hand was warm against mine, but then he withdrew it as he awaited an answer to his question. I stumbled to find the words.

'I was taught to contemplate everything around me. I think of everything I can see, hear, touch and smell. I think of what makes those things what they are, and try to be mindful of all of them. Then I try to think past them, into the portal realm, to make it just as real as anything I can see or hear.'

'That is what it says in the textbooks,' Orjeik conceded, 'but each person must find a place in their own minds in order to become an effective portalmancer. That place is different for everyone.'

'Are you saying that you cannot help me?' I asked him, but he shook his head.

'I’m saying that you’re overthinking it. You are going through the motions. Instead of listing your senses one at a time, try to view the world as a whole. View it as you would a person, and analyse it as you would their appearance. And then their character. And then, finally, their souls. When you are able to analyse the soul of the world, then you will summon your portal. Do you understand?'

'I do, I think,' I said. 'Though I do not know how to analyse the soul of a man, let alone that of the world.'

'My lady, have you ever been into a portal?' Master Orjeik asked me.

I had not. To most people, portals were intensely personal. Just as most people educated enough to be a portalmancer would not make love with any random stranger, most would prefer not to put their portal realm on public display. This was why it was such an intimate experience, and why portals are destined to become joined at mariage.

'Would you acquiesce to entering mine?'

'Yours? Would you be okay with that?' I asked him uncertainly.

'My lady, I didn’t become the foremost tutor of portalmancy in the realm by being private about the art,' Master Orjeik said with refreshing openness. 'I’d be more than happy for you to step into my portal. I sense that you don’t know what you seek to visualise, and that putting it before you will aid your progress.'

'Then I acquiesce,' I said.

Orjeik stood and walked away from the table. He put his hand out before him, as if gesturing that I should enter a doorway that lay beyond, and then, just like that, his portal appeared. As with all portals, it was a black void, possessed neither of translucency nor well-defined edges. Light seemed to flicker around it, though it was a clear oval when viewed from the front.

Orjeik took my hand again, though this time it was required. One can only enter another’s portal by way of physical contact at the time of entry. He stepped through the portal, and, taking a deep breath, I joined him.