“So much work to do…Y-yes, that I can see…So much work for you to do, and so much in your hands. I think you are just what we need to teach us, Sir. Now is not a time for lessons, for soft and steady exercises, not after last night…There is no time to learn, is there? There is only time to be shown how to prevail…A Mage has a path that only they can walk, so why worry about walking it with them, all you can do is show us how to survive until we each reach out destinations.” There was a sad knowledge to her tone a certainty odd for one so young, though in trust she’s so close to womanhood, childhood fading

Anrui took a long, slow breath.

“Hey,” he says finally with a small smile. “I thought I was supposed to be the one consoling you here. Teacher to student and all that?”

Sahren blushed, a blaze of ruddy red blooming across her cheeks, teeth chewing her lower lip as she seems to shrink a foot into the pebbly sand, muttering away out to sea.

“S-sorry, I didn’t m-mean to overstep any bounds…”

“Not at all,” the Regulator said with a laugh, wrapping a protective arm around Sahren’s shoulders. “It shows a kind of strength few of us ever bother to practice. Compassion.”

Sahren stiffened against the surprise of his arm, then as if her whole body sighs she relaxes, a shiver running down the length of her body.

“You seemed as lost as any of us,” she said, struggling for something to say. “It is easy to forget that Regulators are people, you all seem so calm and knowing. I saw my father cry, just once, when my brother died…It was a lesson I haven’t forgotten Do you feel any better, at least?”

“Mostly,” he nodded. “Though I’m still steamed that the Gault got in. And Moar…” A bewildered shake of the head. “I can’t believe they sent the Chief of the Gault tribe. Must have been after someone specific to send that killer.”

Sahren set her hand to the small of his back, a conciliatory rub, soft and unsure, her small hand a butterfly’s wing of uncertainty.

“They will not have an easy time in future, Sir, I know you will be ready for them, and with your help we can be ready for them. Do you know who they were after…I am sorry to say I still get confused over who is who and who does what here.”

“It’ll get clear,” he said with the vague certainty of one who’s had the same trials. “But as to who the Gault were after… I can only guess. And guesswork is not productive.”

He relaxed somewhat, finally, the singing of his ametrine bangle rippling to a halt. The man’s nearly dead on his feet for lack of sleep, and it’s beginning to show in his mood.

“I’ll be leaving the Blackcards to Grale and Caspiain for a few days,” he said distractedly, eyes glazed and forcing for focus. “Cas lost the majority of his class. Has some free time. And Grale is better with physical battle than I am.”

Sahren let her arm drop, just looking at him, a little disappointment rippling her face but soon hidden.

“You will come back, won’t you?” It was as close to a plea as she’d give in to, finally finding someone to talk to a coup. “Though, I’d say a little rest would go a long way for now…” The young farmgirl used to mothering it seems.

He nodded, raising his free hand to rub at his eyes.

“I’ll be back, yes. I just need to make a jaunt up to Wyvern Lake, see how Morvran is doing up there with his. Bring him a note from the Accord. Shouldn’t be more than five or six days, weather permitting.” He smiled and gave Sahren’s shoulder an affectionate squeeze before nodding, and heading down the beachfront, back toward the barracks. Five or six days yes, but only once he actually woke up. With the ache he’s in for, that might double the trip.

She offers a weak smile, but it is a start, the worry lines of her features smoothing prettily as she watching him go

“Have a safe trip, Sir…” Her arms fold about her chest soon enough. The words soft and tremulously spoken as she turns back to the waves, watching dawn break higher over the sea, tired herself, but sleep a long way off, past all the clouds of her own thoughts and doubts, and the new hopes seeded by a single conversation.

“How did you cope with what you were? What you can do…I don’t even know myself anymore, I was happy…And now I feel so lost, lost in the mists I’m supposed to become a controller of. My gift controls me, Sir…It scares me more than those who sought to kill me.”

There was a shiver of strength to the set of her shoulders now, the tall man so much more than the boys in her class, she didn’t have to stoop to talk to him, ad she was slowly learning that.

“I don’t want to hate myself anymore, Mireya told me I had to work to avenge the evil done against the good, but what if the evil sees me as evil and themselves as good…It is all a grey mist, things were simple on the farm with Ma and Father.”

Anrui  just… Smiled.

“Good and evil are perspectives.” The pale man shrugged, lifting his hands uselessly. “It’s hard to say what the Dornans and the Xul think. They attacked first, many years ago, and we’ve been fighting a slowly losing battle, ever since the Saervan Beach engagement when the Grey Man disappeared twenty years ago. I think I was only about three then.” Anrui shook his head, looking back out over the ocean.

“You need to find your own reason to fight. Everyone has one. Everyone has their own way. Mine is through battle. Some turn the path of the Healers, though there is danger in that as well. Some become assassins. Some, artisans, shaping armour and weapons for the mundane soldiers in Wyvern Lake. You’ll find your own path. Just hope you do before one is forced upon you by the Divine.”

“War, does it serve a purpose for the gods, or is it a purpose for men?” The girl had obviously been spending much time asking questions that would not have answers, a keen intelligence behind the slovenly reticence that many had taken for backwater stupidity. “How do I find my path, Sir? Being a healer sounds nice…Until I think of the wounded, the dying, the helplessness that comes with having to watch young men become young corpses….They are so calm, and I feel like there’s a storm broiling in my head….Will you teach us what we could become? How do you teach something you yourself have said is so personal

“That’s part of my trouble.” He frowned, crossing his arms against the cool breeze. “I’m not cut out for this teaching thing. I’m a field agent. An assassin. It’s a harsh job, but it’s what my talents play to. It’s definitely not what I want, but what I want often doesn’t enter into the matter. And now that I’ve been made Arbiter…”

He shook his head.

“I can tell you about the professions. The paths in the mage forces. But we won’t have time for that yet. There’s so much work to do.” This last was said like a mantra for Frost’s entire life. So much work to do. A sad vector to a brilliant Weaver’s thoughts, but perhaps the only thing keeping him in line. This was a man who existed for Duty. Honour. Courage. There was clearly little else of value in his life.

One other, lone figure made its way out on the beech, a tall sentinel bare feet touching cold, damp sand where the white foam of the oceans spray dances to wet the hems of her breeches. Sahren had a defeated slump to her shoulders, hair whipping in a plait behind her, caught in the wind and buffeted. The cold had long left her fingers blue tinted to match the bangles at her wrists, but she didn’t seem to feel anything, looking out to nevermore, to the distant shores of home.

Anrui perked up a bit at the sense of someone else on the beach, finally coming out of his dedicated haze. He stands up in the small ditch and turns, finding Sahren with his eyes.

“There’s no way they should have even landed,” he says softly, shaking his head and looking out to sea. “No way they could have gotten past the Line.”

Sahren glanced up, shock rimming her bright eyes, the blue watery, shining with tears that haven’t yet fallen

“But they did…Didn’t they?” Her words are softer than the sea on the shore, wavering, eyes soon falling away, timidity curling her tall form to look smaller than she was.

Anrui  blinked, startled.

“Yes,” he agree. “Somehow they did.” The Regulator turned, climbing languidly out of the ditch. “How are you holding up? I see you’re getting on with Rhayd and Kintere.”

“There are only four of us left, and without the others I would be stretched out under the sky myself.”

“And you’re stronger for it.” The Regulator reached her side and crossed his arms, his eyes distant. “This is proof the war is getting closer. I have no idea where it will fall, when it hits the mainland. But obviously the Dornans now have the Sek’im and the Xul involved. We can’t make mistakes like letting the Gault in. They claim to be independent from their Xul ancestors, but they’re less mercenary than they think.”

“We? We are a we now…” It seems to confuse the young woman, the way his talk included her as a part of it, those too wide, too innocent eyes of hers flying to his face “The war was just a warning tale told to me to make me behave until I came here, now I can still smell nothing but blood and hear only screams….”

“I know. Every soldier knows that feeling. Remembers the days after their first encounters. It never goes away. But it does stop acting like a roar in your mind. Eventually, this night will become the voice of caution and you will likely learn to trust it. But for now, I should say the next few days will be a time of rest. A time to recoup our own energies, and keep ourselves in check.” The Weaver steadied a hand and rested it on Sahren’s shoulder, bowing his head. “Never isolate yourself. You seem to have been doing that a lot. It’s not your strong suit.”

Sahren looked at his hand, as if it were something alien, the large fingers seeming to dwarf her frame. For a moment there’s the slight flicker of a smile on her lips, but it fades at his words. Her pale sky blue eyes get lost out to sea again, the confident power of his gaze too much, even if her wiry frame does seem to lean to him a little, flower growing towards the sun.

“It’s all so big, I’m not like these people, I don’t fit here…All I’ve been wanted to do is go home, but they don’t want me there either, not anymore…I have this gift” She speaks the words like it’s a curse “Rhayd and Kintere love it…You can tell, I don’t want to know this feeling, Sir.”

“They’ll learn to hate it.” The words drop like lead weights. Anrui lifted his hand, the ametrine bangle singing softly, a call to bring life to its captive weapon. “Talent is an obligation, Sahren. It doesn’t open doors. You know better than most, it closes them.” The Regulator let his hand fall to his side again, the bangle humming in disappointment.

“Power comes to live inside the willing. Those too eager find themselves devoured. Like the Grey Man, Grevault Anginock. Those who hope for something often get it – they devour instead, like Ansolen Lemiticron. It’s those of us who loathe what we can do, but understand the necessity of learning to control our abilities who survive the longest. Eventually, everyone comes to respect their own power.” He turns to face Sahren, the bright blue spidery writing of his Arbiter’s tattoo shimmering liquid in the dawn light. “I was a lot like you when I came here.”

- the assassin paused, uncertain, its glowing blue eyes locking with the approaching form of Rhayd Khalenn -

Chimecleaver feinted, twisting about Anrui’s legs as the Regulator spun, before spearing the indigo killer through the chest, its momentum carrying the Regulator against the demon’s shoulder and sending both to the ground.

A cloud of dust. One last, eccentric flash of lightning.

Anrui stood slowly, the last bits of Moar Gault’s body settling about his feet, staining the white bed sheet grey and purple.

The remaining assassins, few that there were, faded. Flickering shadows worked their way back to the dark mass on the beach, and away into the darkening night. Only the light of Chimecleaver remained, along with some mage flame created by the Accord Council and, far down the breath, the great candle of Rhayd Khalenn’s sword.

“Tomorrow,” Frost intoned evenly, “we’re working on defence. Stamina later. There’s no excuse for this. Sahren.”

Sahren jumped, forcing herself to look up at Anrui, meeting his eyes and the cruel ice therein.

“You’re going to help me teach these people what real shielding means.”

Without any other response available, Sahren simply nodded. She had no idea how she would manage to teach what little she knew, but he had asked, and she would help.

Anrui turned, to look back at the remaining children. Seven score, roughly. Of those, only three Blackcards remained standing. He smiled at those, noticing the girl was wearing Rhayd’s coat.

“I’m impressed. No Seasonal Exam could have approximated this. We’ll done, all of you. I’ll be speaking with the Accord Council about cancelling the exams. You,” he said quietly, pointing the smoking sword at one of the Redcards. “In the morning, you will report to the office of Calenhad Firehand. I see that blood on your arm.”

The boy started to speak, to cover the wound he had made with his own quartz knife. But he had no words, and simply bowed his head, exhaling heavily. The Regulator nodded, finishing the debate even before it had a chance to begin.

“Now… I need some sleep.”

“Here,” he said quietly, locking his eyes to hers. I think you need this more than I do.”

Sahren was surprised by the kindness, her blue eyes seeing the boy, her fellow student as if for the first time. Not time for a smile though, no place for the expression, screams curdling her blood.

“Thank you…” Trailing to nothing as her innocent eyes widen, the never-ending swarm of assassins closing in.

“Pay attention,” Mireya spat at Rhayd, pointing a slender finger at the action ahead.

As an afterthought, Kintere shed his own coat and offered it to Mireya, but it was too late for gestures, and the blonde beauty rejected the offer, barking an order to keep alert and stop wasting time.

Not all of the students were heeding Anrui’s call, though Sahren did not intend to get closer. The drone of voices growing in her mind, the chaos was all about the noise to a girl from the quiet pasture lands, screams, battle cries, orders…It all swirled into mist in her mind’s eye with the clarity of the shiny patina of her kukri flashing as it’s drawn.

Odd, how in the sea of panic, having a coat made everything warm, safe. Not being alone gave her the courage to face the charging wasp nest. All the sounds still converged in the silent moment between heartbeats.

A black form rushed the trio – another of the Gault. Mist seeming to scream from Sahren’s lips, a silent thunderclap called, the man charging her struck by a concussion of air pressure like an explosion as the wisps struck his chest. The figure dropped to writhe, deep indigo stains appearing on his chest.. Kill or die, a lesson learned then, and learned well as she finishes the assassin with a merciful sweep of a blade across his neck. It was like slaughtering cattle. At least that was how she explained it to herself, how she let herself cope.

The kind boy, the one now lacking his coat was watched for, and the other one, the short boy, the one she’d heard first…She knew them from the safety of class, and for the very first time she missed class.

“Where’s Kintere?”

Sahren blinked and looked about. The tall man who had been with her new companion was gone.

“There,” she said, pointing some fifty spans away, where Kintere was grappling with a Gault, trying to get him off one of the other students. With a loud growl, Kintere struck the chest of the Gault, and a spark lit the night. Lightning fired through the body of the attacker, and made for one of its kin, causing both to sizzle and burst into flame. With a savage scream, Kintere struck again, this time connecting with the head of another Gault, and sending out a chain of white heat through the next two figures.

“He’s gone berserk,” Rhayd screamed, running toward his friend, grabbing up the long amethyst sword from where Kintere had dropped it on his run. Sahren was frozen, taken aback by the brutal display of feral might Kintere was carrying out. Again and again the man struck every black-clothed head in reach, spires and shards of hot white light bristling from his iron Athama. And Rhayd, his sword aflame, joined in whipping through more and more of the killers.

Everywhere, the tide was turning. Sahren felt lost in it all, unused to such violence. She turned, spying the Accord Council far behind the line, his arms lit with unearthly fire, setting arrow after flaming arrow of mage fire down the beach and into the sails of the Gault ships, most of which were already being set to the tide. Grale Hammerhand was there as well, bearing his massive gemmed hammer, wheeling blow after crushing blow to the knees, hips and thighs of his aggressors. His entire class was there with him, set in a wedge, obviously a trained fighting force. The Redcards’ instructor, Caspiain, was alone save his remaining few students. His normally dour garb was accented with streamers of light cloth showing his stolid refusal to remove his black robes. His hands were caged in gauntlets of stone and steel, and wherever he grasped one of the Gault ice formed. Perhaps most grotesque of all of them the Redcards’ teacher was silently striding through the waves of attackers, grabbing pieces of bodies and tearing them away in sickening crackles, freezing every piece of flesh so fast it shattered in any impact.

Light. Thunder. Moreover, the cloying grind of battle. The assassins, almost as one, stopped – metal screamed as swords were sheathed. Dozens fell beneath the onslaught of the Regulators, still more by the chains of lightning, adding rapidly decomposing bodies to those of the fallen initiates.

Sahren looked back to where she had last seen Anrui, facing off against the leader of the assault and his pack of elite warriors. The three remaining had stepped back from the ivory Weaver, leaving Anrui with his shoulders heaving, his hands wreathed in disused Mists. As with Caspiain, ice littered the ground about Anrui, but in his case it was n the form of spears, discs and other blades having gouged through his attackers. Moar Gault paused, surveying his devastated clan. And, of course, the Regulator before him.

“Chimecleaver,” Sahren heard the arbiter whisper, clenching his right hand. A word of power, tied to the ametrine bracelet around his right wrist, caused trapped mist to spring up in a cascade, rocketing out and wrapping about the Regulator’s forearm before shooting down and solidifying into a terrible, glowing hand of fate. A sword of light and fire and air, wrapped in its own eerie blue essence. And he attacked.

Far from her usual plain homeliness, the farm girl had a wildness clinging to her features, a magnetism of lanky uncertainty and in the depths of summer sky eyes that held a startled, doe-like vulnerability. The first few weeks had been hard on the young woman, Anrui remembered in a disjointed moment of reverie between assaults. Shy and awkward still, slow to blossom into conversation, hiding at the back of each class, trying to disappear into the walls, now she was all action, her newly crafted kukri -the hematite blade gleaming like oil in the nightlight- gripped in a white-knuckle-tight hold. Two bands on each narrow wrist, one of moonstone and one of hematite, the stone foci clattering together as chimes with each of her coltish lopes. Nightclothes whipped behind her like a flag, a ghost, pale skinned, white gowned and ash haired, haunted rather than haunting. The Regulator’s words catching her attention, the girl fell in behind Anrui, visibly happy to be one in a group, still uncertain of herself enough to seek a place to hide in a crowd, moving with the rest as a scared child towards a parents bed during a storm.

With a sharp gesture, Anrui commanded her behind him, along with his other students, and took off toward the mass of invaders.

The assassins fall, as easily as men. More easily, in some cases. Yet still they come in scores, seeming to divide from the shadows, reaching out from the shore, streaming from a great black mass writhing against the sand.

Many students went down. Five Redcards had fallen in the first ten minutes, three Greens and only one Black. Anrui had done his job well it seems, focusing on innovation with his charges rather than rote and form. A lesson for the other Regulators; individuality breeds survivors.

A strange form rippled through the ranks of the Gault. This one, unlike the others, bore a golden dragon blazing on its mask, and deep mahogany armour. Anrui knows it too well.

“Moar Gault has come with them! I was right. Stay far away from that one!” He indicates the dragon crested assassin, which locks its steely blue eyes on his.

One of the upperclassmen makes a foolish choice.

“Emura, no!”

Anrui Frost’s call went unheeded, and the ranking Blackcard drove toward the Gault Chieftain, mists flaring around his body. A mass of greyish vapour ripped toward the indigo killer, sifting itself through water state, and crystallizing into stark grey ice. Even as the class man screamed, the ice flickered, and was shattered by the suddenly wheeling sword of the dragon-branded killer. With barely a visible move, the chieftain slammed his sword through Emura’s stomach, stopping the man dead. Literally. Sparing a glare for Anrui, the demon hauled Emura from his sword and dropped the boy to the ground with an undulating hiss – laughter.

“Use no magic against that one,” the Regulator hisses, his muscles bunching as he steps slowly forward to the silent, advancing form of Moar Gault. “He is mine. There are plenty for the rest of you.”

As usual, lessons were going well. Call stamina had improved among the Blackcards, and some had begun to learn how to Shape ice, fire, and other rudimentary substances from the Mist they now commanded. It wasn’t enough, however. Something left Anrui Frost feeling like there was just too much going on behind the scenes that he didn’t know about. Some of the students were beginning to stand out. This, too, was good, but again, there was that tingling in the back of Anrui’s neck.

A tingling like Antimagic being used somewhere close.

A cold, rushing sensation filled the Arbiter as he turned from the window, and he closed his eyes against it just as the first flashes of a Nullstorm ripped across the sympathetic field in the barracks, striving to shake the enchantments that coated most of the surfaces there. Far away, he could hear the sound of stone exploding – some of the inferior Athama bursting from the rapid loss of their magical charge, like jellyfish come up from the depths too fast. At his own bedside one of his oldest bangles, a honey calcite bracelet bearing a fragile water enchantment, popped and crackled, and it was all Anrui could do to hold the thing together under influence of will.

“Alarm!”

The scream was surreal, and it sent the Regulator out of his door and into the hallway with nothing on but his new, raw tattoo and the bed sheet tied around his waist. And the single Bangle he always wore about each wrist. The poor old calcite bracelet he had been trying to keep together splintered and exploded as soon as his attention left it.

“Come on, you lollygaggers!” The call was from Grale, the lone Moorish Regulator, who was ushering initiates out of their long rooms with a speed all his own. The Moorishman stopped in front of Anrui for a moment, long enough to flash a telling frown at the pale mage, before scuttling off again to claim his own Greencards from the ranks. Anrui bristled.

“Blackcards!” he boomed, raising a fist like a beacon. “To me! Lockwood Academy is under attack!”

Kintere and Rhayd were first out of the barracks, having been the last to enter most likely, after another round of drinking in the public house. Well enough they looked awake, and each had his Athama at the ready, even if their clothes did look somewhat dishevelled. Mireya was with them, keeping sharp pace behind the pair with her own Athama in its holster. Good, here at least was one group who knew how to work together.

Anrui beckoned the trio to him and streaked out from the barracks like an ivory arrow-shaft. In the quadrangle between barracks, practice halls and the armoury, dozens of blackened figures are already being engaged by the few students who were foolish enough to break curfew. The Regulator narrowed his eyes and hissed.

“Gault! It’s the Gault!” The man spun back momentarily, calling to his students, “They die just like men! Break them up and take them down! But if you see an enemy in mahogany, leave him for the Regulators! Do not engage the indigo ones!”

Some of the delinquent students were already down, leaving the dark assassins to break into pairs and spread out in the face of the entire barracks bearing down on them. Rhayd and Kintere were first into the fray, the smallish nobleman swinging his huge amethyst Athama as if it were a mundane sword, spewing flame from the blade as he went. Clearly, he had chosen his element of ease, which made Anrui proud even in the face of threat. Kintere, however, was bearing his two long iron rods like truncheons, bludgeoning the heads of those that came near him with vicious abandon. Behind the pair, that girl that followed them around was huddled, brow knotted, focusing on Rhayd. Perhaps shielding him – Anrui had not known she possessed such stern talent. That would have to be explored later on, when there was time.

“Emura,” Anrui bellowed, beckoning one of his three upperclassmen to him. “Get the cards, most of them are here. We’ve got to stay together – the Gault work better one on one.”

“I got it,” the black-maned student grinned. “They don’t like a mob, do they?”

“No chance,” Anrui agreed, retrieving a heavy club and a long knife from one dead invader. “Keep the young’uns together, we’ll get through this. Kintere! Rhayd!”

The tall tribesman paused, raising his brows at his tutor. Rhayd did not look back, but the girl broke her stare and looked at Anrui squarely, clearly not in her element.

“Keep out front, these bastards don’t seem to like you too much!”

The tall boy nodded, and continued forging ahead like a boulder rolling down a steep slope; relentless. The girl went back to her study of Rhayd’s back, as the young noble redoubled his efforts, coating his long sword in bright, flickering flame.

“There was an accident on the farm, Pa got trapped under the harvesting thresher, there was blood everywhere and Jarn the farm hand was screaming….I ran to help – I can remember screaming and being so scared…The farm hands were trying to lift it, but they couldn’t. As I was running, I just pushed out my hands, just trying to get to him. I wished so hard and something happened…” Still the nervous habit of whittling at that bottom lip presented itself.

The instructor listened quietly through her story, and placed a hand on her shoulder at its end.

“You’ve a rare gift, Sahren. Threshers are big machines, and heavy. Not too many trained field mages can lift them with the aid of their art, and you did it by instinct alone. I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about, missing this class,” he added, that sarcastic smile turning rueful. “They’re learning to pull wisps of Mist out of nothing and tip over small reed tripods. Something you’d be able to do in your sleep.”

Sahren found herself swaying into his touch a little, the warmth of another person turning her mood, forcing her to look at him with shining eyes.

“I didn’t mean to do it though, just my Da was hurt, and he was going to die and I didn’t even think – The farm hands were spooked, refused to stay around as long as I was there…Said I was a curse. Then they were sore as it took them days to get the thresher back in working order.” Giving him a long look with her doleful blue eyes “You won’t tell anyone I’m different will you? I don’t want to spend my time here as much an outcast as I left home for…” Almost imploring “In fairness, I’ve not the idea how to do it on purpose.”

“Different?”

Frost laughed, the sound bell-like and ringing through the calm seaside morning. The hand that was on her shoulder lifted up, the sleeve falling – the glint of a stone bangle visible for a moment before it does the same. It shines with unearthly light as the Instructor traces a tiny sigil in the air, leaving a trail of flame hovering in place behind the movements of his fingers. Sahren watched the trail of his fingers, the glowing borealis after them – eyes catching the firelight until they shine as she turns to look at him – caught in his eyes, unblinking – cheeks flushed and lips slightly parted as if trying to speak.

“Sahra,” he whispered, interrupting her. “Different doesn’t apply here. When your Talent comes to its fruit, people may act as though you’re strange for a while, but this place has hosted thousands of different Talents in its time. Your differences won’t set you apart here.”

“Yes they will,” she protested. “Perhaps not my Talent, but my voice, my body, even the cut of my clothes…They set me apart as sure as you picked my birthplace. Already I am, apart from my classmates and ignored for the most part…You are my first friend here, and you are my instructor. I am different, Anrui Frost. But at least I mind less now than I did an hour before.”

One eyebrow rose slowly, the smile washed from the instructor’s face.

“Everyone here is different, Sahra. That’s the point. If you weren’t different from those you left, you’d not have left. I’m from Tan Maevin, near as I can tell. Grale, who’s in there working with my Blackcards, is Moorish. One of my students is a Balthus-damned Namari, for Jag’s sake. We’re all a mixed bag of nuts here, something you’d best not forget. Now, there’s still an hour before lunch, so I suggest you get in there and learn what you can. Try not to show off too much, alright? We’ll talk more later, after I get your barracks situation sorted.”

Sahren felt hurt a moment at the sudden shift, the dismissal, but recovered without more than a flash of it in her eyes. Nodding meekly, accustomed to rebuke.

“Don’t worry, Sir, I’ll not show off…And thank you for your kindness and for offering to sort out the barracks.”

Reaching to touch her hand to his elbow for a moment, Sahren allowed herself one last look at the strange man’s eyes.

“I’ll remember what you told me, I’ll not let you down” She meant it, every word so steadfast and sure, even in her soft voice – with her awkward frame and baggy clothes – finally rejecting the automatic, timid body language she had adopted without thought. Finally, she felt some hope at fitting in, even if it was with only one person on this rocky, strange island so far from her home.

The instructor nodded, smiled, and promptly dragged out a small notebook and pencil, split the book open to the place of a ribbon marker and began writing. Capricious, obviously, but nonetheless entrancing with his easy manner, Anrui Frost disappeared into his writing as readily as he had dived into their conversation, his attention completely engrossed in the task at hand and nothing else.

“I don’t know how I feel about being a minion,” she argued. Humour tripped out with a raise of a sun-gilded brow, the farm girl remembered herself just to late to call the words back. She shrank back into herself as a blush tries to replace a smile, mortified at the slip – he was not a friend.

“Excuse me, Instructor Frost…I – I ” Fingers stroking hair from her face before her hand goes out to him, long capable looking fingers and scar lined palms rough with well earned calluses “I’m Sahren Kesnell, Sir.”

The man laughed, taking her hand firmly and shaking it once with vigour.

“Pay no attention to me, Sahren Kesnell. I’m new here too. It all takes some getting used to, doesn’t it?”

Sahren ‘s grip was as firm as the rest of her body language is mousey.

“I’ve not had time to get used to anything yet…We had some troubles on the way, and I’m so late. The last I have been told, there’s not I know and no-one either. I’ve been stationed with the Redcards…S’why I’m as late as to shame my pa.” Realising she’s sharing too much, catching herself from going on, only to stop and give him a confused expression. “I’m supposed to pay attention to you though, Sir, you just told me you were my tutor. ” Lips almost tipping into a smile again, honest humour.

The grin returned, infectious and vile at once. With a jerk of self-conscious annoyance, Frost released her hand and dipped his own back into his cloak, tugging at the garment to keep it closed against the whipping wind.

“I’ll let you know when I’ve something worth remembering to say. I’m sorry to hear you’re stuck with the reds. Their instructor, Caspiain, is a bit of a slump when it comes to the rules. I try not to be.”

Sahren’s fingers feather out and curl before being pulled back, thumb hooking under her thick belt – making herself stop smiling at him.

“If I’m paying no attention I’ll not hear the order to listen…” Softly spoken even as her voice trailed off, realising there’s a line she’s already too close too, reacting to his friendliness as a drowning woman to a life raft. “Don’t worry, Sir, I doubt the Redcards will have much influence. I’m a Blackcard, so I’m all yours.”

“We’ll see how much you stick with that after you’ve seen me teach,” the instructor mused, stepping away from the building. “Walk with me.”

Sahren took one long look back at the door, knowing there was a lesson in there she was supposed to be in, but so much more drawn by the one she was sure would come by following. Decision made, she fell into easy stride beside the Instructor.

“I’ve got my black little card, Sir, it didn’t come with instruction I could trade it in or play swap…So I think I’ve been put here for some reason, I’ll stick…Pa says I’m more stubborn than the goat…” Blushing even as she said it, running fingers once again through her hair, teeth tugging at the plush curve of her lower lip.

“Never met any goats, so I lack comparison,” the man said with a hint of sarcasm. “So, stubborn Sahren. How did you come by this place? Your accent tells me you’re likely from close to Absolution, I’d be willing to be the Halcyon river region. Did Arbiter Andalerom find you there, or was your Talent otherwise discovered?”

Instantly shooting from surprise to wonder Sahren gazed at her Instructor with another smile, relaxing already – far more easy going than the timid sparrow who ran up the beach a scant few moments ago.

“I didn’t know I was so easily placed…Ma and Pa have a farm in Halcyon River.” Shying away from his face, it was rude to openly stare after all “Pa and I found the Arbiter rather than the other way around. He said it’d be better for me to be here…After folks knew.” Too cryptic for her nature, the girl seeming to shy away from the whole thing “Said it was safer.”

“Good. Being late is no obstacle then. Most of the students we see have never Called the Mists on their own, and half of them need coaxing just to do it once. If you weren’t in a normal testing group, it means you’ve had experience Weaving, even if it’s small.” He turned back to her, halting just at the edge of the lapping tide. Only with his feet solidly placed on wet, hard sand was it apparent he wasn’t wearing shoes. “What did you manage to do?”

The long rooms finally appeared in the distance, hunched on a rocky escarpment butting up against the beach, two score insect like lumps lined with red brick made from the clay in the mountains on the north of the island. The sun made them look like ovens, and likely they were inside but there was limited indication. The only visible figure sat, curled in a ball at the entrance of the third most building wrapped in a heavy black Weaver’s cloak, its shock of white hair whipped by the sea-born wind.

Not quite out of breath as she finally pulled her long strides back to a fast stride, struggling with wind whipped hair as it fell about her shoulders and down her back in a wild tumult causing her to sputter curses for her late awakening and the lack of time to plait it properly. She had barely had the time to remember to nestle the sheath for her kukri shaped Athama, amethyst just visible at the edge of the ill-fitting scabbard.

“Excuse me…” her timid voiced country-burr was inescapable Sahren took a moment to lick her lips and plant her hands on her hips. “I’m sorry for the trouble, but I’m looking for the Blackcards, and I’m late…d’you know where they are…Please?” Her eyes dropped back to the floor, seeming to shrink in on herself a little, hard to do when you’re as tall as she, and built as all good firm girls should be – strong and curved – made to stand the test of time.

Icy blue eyes too old for the face that framed them peeked up at the girl from under the mass of silvery hair. A slender hand reached up from within the cloak to rake back the offending mass as a discerning frown crept across the too-young face.

“The Blackcards are in there,” he said softly, jerking a thumb at the door to the long room. “Do you have a message for one of them?”

Sahren glanced down at him, only as he asks her purpose, her summer-sky eyes meeting his wintery-chill, shying away as sure as an unbroken filly from a saddle.

“A message?” Painfully obvious that she got the implication, her expression faulting into a frown for a moment before she makes herself glance up again “I am a Blackcard ” Wanting to go on, to say more – that much obvious as she clamps her full lips into a thin line. Taking a step closer – towards both the man and the door.

“Ah!” the man beamed, shooting to his feet. “I was wondering when the last of my minions would be showing up. When did you get in? I was not aware that any ships were coming to wharf here until next week. Oh, forgive me,” he added with a laugh, extending his hand, using the other one to keep his cloak closed tightly about him, even against the heat of the sun. “My name is Anrui Frost. I’m your instructor.”