A deep breath in through the mouth, Leah’s upper body rose from the soft mattress, eyes flying open, left cheek feeling numb. Her entire body protested the sudden rise, eliciting a cry she was too sleep-addled to prevent. The Pebble lying on a red cot near the opposite wall opened an eye and aimed it at her. The new leader of the Le’Chereteshe had been asleep too, but why in the Mother’s name was she… The Ranger inspected the sleeping chamber. The mini-chandelier hanging on the ceiling, the amber curtains drawn closed, the floor to ceiling crack on the wall to the right and the dark-brown rug covering most of the concrete ground. No, it was definitely one among her living quarters. She and Nett had built that cot specifically because the younger student always used to stay there whenever she’d help an injured Leah come back to rest, but the last time that had happened had been six months ago. Before the circumstances of their relationship had changed. What was she doing there? The answer came quicker than most.

“He called you, didn’t he?” Leah asked.

Nett nodded. “He mustn’t have heard about you being kicked out of my organization.”

“I highly doubt that. There’s nothing going on in the Harubridgium that the man doesn’t know about,” she said.

“To be fair, a lot has happened to you today. A banishment, an attempted murder, an almost-expulsion... An ascension. Risky business being a council member without an order of students at your belt. Should really get on that.”

“I will, as soon as you get off my cot and leave my quarters. Thank you so much for your help.”

“You don’t sound thankful, Cheretesha.”

Standing from the bed, Leah pointed at the door on the left wall. “I’ll cheer out an encouragement as you limp out, swear to the mother.”

“Vocatian’s walk, I can’t! I can’t. I’ve had a rough day too. Spent all the energy I had left bringing you back here. The least you can do is let me have my cot.”

She closed her eye and turned her head away from you, like she’d always done, since the early days of her tutelage. Leah remembered the ten year old who’d become her sister and softened. “You didn’t have to answer the call. To come help me.”

“Oh, I did. And I always will. Whether we’re in the same order or not. I only wish you felt the same way.”

Leah sat back down on the bed. “I’m adamant I didn’t leave you that rough when last we fought. What happened?”

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“Practice; for the Danjuni that was just uncovered.”

“You can’t get into the Danjuni, not without my endorsement, or someone else’s further up on the ladder.”

“Cilliar said there are ways. That he can get me in.”

“Cilliar is a con-artist, Nett. He’ll take your coin and run.”

“That’s the thing. He doesn’t want anything in return. A friendly gift, he called it.”

A friendly gift. “Doing it at the kindness of his soul, is he?”

“He’s trying, alright. A better man than he used to be,” Nett said.

Then why is he helping you die. A bird screeched in the distance. Leah’s hand went to her wounded shoulder by instinct. Newly bandaged. Newly stitched. Her successor’s work, most likely. Her grandfather’s words came to the forefront of her mind. Talk it out with the younger pebble, instead of trying to make her choice your own.

“The Danjunai are dangerous places.”

Nett turned her head back to Leah, eyes ajar. “You don’t think I know that?”

“Just listen, please,” Leah said and waited. No interruption. “They’re dangerous places. Ruins of long-dead civilizations far more advanced than ours. Ruins only people who’ve leveled up past the tens can enter without a permit, because they can handle the protection protocols set within better than most. You and I have barely began to climb up the Slumbering Mother’s ranks. But you and I are lucky. Before us, regular delving was compulsory for the students of the Harubridgium. Before the Council one generation prior to mine made a unanimous decision to remove it from the Curriculum, for all incoming students. I belonged to the first year of Pebbles who were exempt from the practice, but those who joined the school before my class still had to delve. Thousands of Pebbles. Thousands of Upperclassmen, some of them my friends, and only a fraction of them were left by the time you became one of us. None were ever the same. Not Daru. Not Max. Part of the reason I was able to become a Council Member at only sixteen years of age. I’ve come to the realization that I’ve been hindering you. Controlling you. Making your decisions for you. And I didn’t mean to do that. The Ruins of those who came before are dangerous places, is all. They have done nothing to me but take and take and then take some more. I didn’t want them to take you too.”

There. She’d done it. Explained herself; and felt all the more lighter for it, despite the silence. Patience. Give her time. Leah stood back up from the bed, walked to the black desk at the right wall, and unlocked one of its drawers. From its contents she took out a book and opened it.

“Nothing will take me. Nothing and no one,” Nett said. “I am ready, Welimirua.”

“Do you have a plan?” Leah took out the envelope hidden within it.

“Wouldn’t be sleep deprived if I didn’t.”

“Then you can have my blessing,” she took out the letter requesting admission, searched for her name at the bottom and signed below it. The document began to glow an ethereal gold, floating up from the table, before it vanished without a trace, but she knew where it was going. The Administrator of Ruins. A bird screeched in the distance, and wound pulsing in response, an Instructor hoped she hadn’t made an error which would cost the Pebble who’d become her sister, the Pebble she’d promised to protect, her life.