Orenda sat in the empty library with the registry before her, slowly going down the names in the unit of earth mages who were assigned, more than two centuries ago, to ‘protect’ the ‘diplomats’ who had gone to ‘meet with’ the council of priests who ruled the fire elves from the temple in the sacred mountains.

Each column had a title and purpose with statistics such as name, age, sex, rank, and, most interesting to Orenda, a column marked ‘status’. As she read down the names, the most common entry in that field was “deceased: KIA”, which she knew from her research meant “Killed in action”. Each name was listed with the last name first, which made looking for first names particularly difficult.

However, there was only one “Tolimaur” in the unit. The listing read simply:

Name: Sambress, Tolimaur, Age: 19, Sex: M, Rank: Specialist (Mage), Status: Dishonorable Discharge: MIA, (presumed deceased).

Orenda found this limited information incredibly interesting and wrote it all down. Tolimaur was only a teenager, yet he had been brave enough to defy the Emerald Knight? Felaern said that he had run. Orenda thought of the sort of person who would run from the Emerald Knight, and what she knew of Gareth told her that death was a lot for the Urilian military to presume. It did not do one well to make presumptions.

She thought of familial connections and flipped to the index to see what other units may have had young officers.

It took her several hours, but she did eventually find that Tolimaur was not alone on the battlefield.

Name: Sambress, Solomaur , Age: 20, Sex: F, Rank: Specialist (Fighter), Status: Dishonorable Discharge: MIA (presumed deceased).

Name: Sambress, Sokomaur, Age: 21, Sex: F, Rank: Specialist (Archer), Status: Dishonorable Discharge: MIA (presumed deceased).

Orenda knew that this meant something, but she didn’t know what. Were they siblings? Elves rarely had so many children so close together. Perhaps they were cousins? The names suggested to her that they were blood related, not married. The names “Sokomaur, Solomaur, and Tolimaur” spoke of a parent who thought they were clever. They had to have all deserted during the same battle to be on the ledger that she was looking at. They probably left together. Orenda concocted a story in her head.

In this story, three people loved each other very much, because they were a family. They were sent on a long journey across the sea, far from their home. Orenda thought that perhaps they were not told that they were being sent to slaughter innocents. She thought that when they arrived, when they found out, that they may have decided that it was better to die together than to become monsters. She saw spells dissipated mid-cast, swords shieved, and bows lowered with arrows still notched. She saw three people who looked upon the Emerald Knight, knew the fear that one who looked at a monster would have to know- and broke rank anyway. She saw people who would have had to have more courage than her cowardly headmaster.

She wanted to know more about them, but didn’t think that the library had those kinds of military reports. This was probably all the information she would get from books. She would look, of course, but the rest would probably have to be pulled out of Quiroris.

The bath house was finished the next week and most of the students celebrated this fact. Orenda had no desire to ever set foot in the place again. She had been washing herself mostly at her basin, but would go about once a week, on her free day when she could sneak away, to have Bubbider fill a washtub for her in the laundry room. It wasn’t the best solution, but it was what she had to work with, and therefore what she did.

She didn’t go to the grand opening, she went back to the library. It meant so little to her. All of these little distractions meant so little to her. She didn’t understand how the other students could be so blind. Orenda was antsy. She felt as if something was missing from her life.

She had a reoccurring dream about a magic staff.

It was not her staff, was nothing like her staff. It was difficult to see, but she could make out that much. It was housed inside a flame, and it had a voice that it used to speak to her. It called her master, and it begged her to take it out of the fire. It told her that she was destined for great things.

Orenda felt that she was wasting time. If she was destined for great things, it did her no good to waste her youth in a classroom.

Orenda also did not go to the dance. This seemed to shock everyone who discovered it, though she made it very clear that she had never had any intention of going. She avoided the pomp on principle, and had the room to herself while the others went to the party. As far as she knew, the two of her roommates who had wanted specific dates in particular got them, and Kassie had gone with some boy who was in their history class whom Orenda thought was particularly unimpressive.

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When Tolith had arrived to walk Shalendra to the ballroom, he had looked heartbroken, and Orenda could understand why. He didn’t seem to want to participate in that nonsense any more than Orenda did, though she suspected it was for different reasons. Orenda told herself that she did not want to go to the dance precisely because she did, but could not. There was no practical way for her to go, so she told herself that she wouldn’t have enjoyed it anyway. Tolith genuinely didn’t want to be a nobleman. He wanted to live the types of adventures that only existed in the minds of people who believed adventure stories.

Orenda thought that he would probably outgrow his reluctance, but she would never outgrow hers.

She was surprised to run into him again a few days later, after the exams and the dance, because she was in a particularly secluded spot outside, pretending to read a book and watching for Bubbider. She looked up and he was standing there, in traveling clothes, alone this time, looking as if he had something important to say.

“Rendy,” He said.

“Yes?” She asked.

“I was thinking about, you know, everybody is going home and everything,” He said.

“Yes,” She said, “I imagine most people have already left.”

“Where are you going?” He asked, very quickly as if he considered it of great importance.

“Oh,” Orenda said as if it was as unimportant as she considered it, “I won’t be going anywhere. Felaern lives here, you know, so there will be at least one adult here to pretend as if I’m being supervised. I imagine I’ll just get to know the town a little better or catch up on my reading or somesuch.”

“Oh,” He said, looking uncomfortable.

“I imagine you’re heading back to your mother’s mansion?” Orenda asked.

“No,” He said, shuffling his feet, “I don’t particularly like it there, and mother says that we shouldn’t often stay at the same place, in case of an attack or assassination or somesuch. I’m going to stay with my father at his military outpost, near the mountains.”

“I hear it’s lovely there,” Orenda said, “Forest and farmlands. I’m sure you’ll have a lovely time.”

“Yeah,” He said, “My dad says that he’ll try to take the solstice off, so we can go to the temple and then spend the day together.”

“Is that what fathers do?” Orenda asked in a detached sort of way. She wasn’t particularly interested in the conversation.

“Oh, uh… I didn’t mean it like that,” Tolith promised, and Orenda finally looked at him, trying to figure out what he thought he had said.

“I didn’t mean that I had a dad and you didn’t,” He explained. “That was stupid… look I just wanted to give you this. I got you a present.”

“Why?” Orenda asked.

“Because it’s the solstice!” he said, a little too excitedly, and his voice made a strange sound in the middle of the sentence that Orenda had learned had something to do with boys and the way they aged.

“Oh,” Orenda said, “I’m afraid I didn’t know we were exchanging gifts. I don’t really have anything. Let me see.”

She dug around in her bag and pulled out a book that she had finished reading. It was the only thing she could think of on such short notice, and was not one that she thought he would particularly enjoy. It was called The Countess and the Stablehand, and had a cover that depicted the titular characters standing in an open field. The stablehand was nude from the waist up, standing behind the countess with her long flowing skirts. Both of them had long hair that fluttered out in the wind as they stared longingly into each other’s eyes. Orenda did not see many boys reading books like that, but it was all she had, and she wouldn’t take a gift without offering something in return.

“You can have this, if you like,” she told him and was stunned by how eagerly he took it.

“Thank you!” He said, sounding as if Orenda had completely misread him and he did actually like it a great deal. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box which he held out to her. “I uh… I got you this. But I gotta go! I uh… I gotta go to my dad’s.”

“Have a safe journey,” Orenda told him, holding the box.

“Yup!” He said, and again could not make it through the word without his voice hitting the wrong octave in the middle.

“Thank you,” She called as he sprinted back toward the school.

He turned and waved in response, which seemed to throw him off balance, because his boot stepped on his cloak and he nearly fell. But, he did manage to right himself on the doorway and successfully make his way inside.

Orenda thought that the poor little idiot shouldn’t have gotten her anything. He had more wealth than sense and was probably under the impression that he was supposed to get a gift for every student in the school. She softly pulled apart the ribbon, opened the box- and was intrigued by what she saw.

Inside was a pair of earrings- which would have been something she could have expected from one so stupid, since her ears were not pierced and that was exactly the kind of oversight he would make- but the exact make of the earrings made her believe that perhaps he had a shred of sense buried somewhere deep under all his fumbling clumsiness. Set into gold fastenings were two glistening, red, fire crystals.

Orenda had never seen a fire crystal in the shops around town, and she had looked. These had to be specially ordered from dwarven craftsmen. She didn’t know what to do with this information, so she closed the box and stuck it into her pocket.