subjects like mathematics and history. This school, though, offered much more exciting topics. Everyone enrolled was required to learn reading and writing, but there the conventionality ended. She enrolled in a dancing class, and a study of business practices, and a music class. . . She'd always been fascinated by music, but never had much exposure to it, aside from street musicians. That would change now. She also took a beginning cooking class, because all she knew about a kitchen was where to find leftovers. Most exciting of all was a required hour of socializing termed "Social Graces." With Lorrine gone, Kama had no friends, although perhaps Liesel counted. So the notion of a supervised setting in which to learn how to socialize gracefully, rather than with Kama's native awkwardness, sounded like the ideal opportunity to shake her out of her past troubles and into a pleasant future.
Perhaps. Of course, it could also be a great setting for her to make a fool out of herself, or all sorts of other bad things. But one could only live so much of one's life wallowing in fear and negativity, after all. Would she remember her own brave words when Liesel's protective barrier wore off?
Mistress Eldanquin summoned an aide to give Kama a tour of the school and all its facilities, so she wouldn't have any difficulty finding her way around in the future. It seemed a nice place, with more space than was readily apparent from the outside, spread over five stories and a cellar. Students worked at assigned chores, running the domestic affairs of the place, so there were no general servants. However, there was a full kitchen staff, because cooking was a full time occupation. There was a garden, filled with herbs, vegetables, and assorted blooming plants, and a little decorative fish pond with pretty but inedible fish swimming around in it.
Best of all was the communal bathing room. Not only did it come with necessary hygiene facilities, it held a large mirror, and a Table of Wonders.
"Oh!" Kama said, stopping in her tracks when she spotted the big table in front of the equally big mirror. She hadn't been in here yet. She'd used a chamber pot. Maybe if she'd known about this alluring table she would have been more willing to come out of her room. It held a wide variety of glass jars and bottles, some of which she recognized as coming from the woman she bought her own beauty treatments from. "This is an amazing collection! Whose is it?"
Lerril, her guide, smiled. "Yours. And mine. It's all of ours, kept supplied by the school, because all of us need to feel beautiful."
"Wonderful," Kama sighed, and moved closer to inspect the contents of the table more closely.
"I take it you'll need no instruction on skin care and hygiene?"
Kama smiled at her, although she didn't laugh. "Hardly. I used to take very good care of my skin, and I intend to resume my proper routine. Perhaps I'll never be able to undo the damage done by neglect, but I'll not know until I try."
"Good for you. There's no class on cosmetics, as such, but many of us gather in here in the mornings and evenings, trading tips and techniques, and doing crazy things to each other's hair."
Suddenly Liesel's barrier meant less than nothing, and Kama felt Lorrine's gentle hands brushing out her hair, working out the braid and the few tangles at the end of the day. Her eyes burned and stung as she willed herself not to break down.
"Hey, what is it? What did I say?"
Lerril, concerned, reached out and touched her arm. The contact, from a hand so clearly not Lorrine's, broke through the intense sensory memory.
"Nothing," Kama said, although her voice wobbled badly. "It's not you. It's. . . I just have trouble sometimes. Because of. . . well, because of the reason I'm here."
"Sorry," Lerril said, and resumed the tour, trying to restore a sense of normalcy.
Kama used the rest of the tour to get herself back under control. She wondered at herself, with this strange emotional imbalance left behind by the loss of her. . . no, not lover. No matter how much Kama loved Lorra, it never amounted to anything. Her friend. Did normal people suffer this horribly when they split up? Probably, or there wouldn't be so many melodramatic ballads out there.
That thought led her to a more productive one. The Mother had said she was something unusual. Stormrider was the word she'd used. What did it mean? Did she feel any different, other than lost and alone?
Well, she'd lost her utter hopelessness over the last few days. That was different, although she rather doubted that had anything to do with this new Stormrider thing.
She wondered about that as Lerril wrapped up the tour by dropping her off at her own door, which she now knew was on a floor reserved for older, more grown up students. Some of the women here weren't women yet at all. The school took students that had reached puberty. That was the only age guideline. So while there weren't any little girls underfoot, there most certainly were a few extremely young women. They stayed up on the higher floors, because young legs handled many stairs more easily than older legs.
Kama went into her room to compose herself before her first class, dancing. This business of living certainly seemed more difficult now than it had before. . . before. She had to watch her thoughts, and her responses to other people's words, and examine herself for any sign of weirdness that might tell her why a Shrouded One would refer to her as a creature of legend.
Desert
"Well, here we are."
Derfek glanced at Lorrine, who looked uneasy as they approached the border crossing. Not a good sign, that.
"Yes, here we are, at last." Derfek shifted his attention back to the collection of blandly desert-colored tents. An unfriendly line of men sat on beautiful horses. Dargasi. Kill a man as soon as look at him. What secrets did they hold inside? "I've been waiting for this day for many annums."
"They don't look too welcoming."
"They will when you reveal yourself to them."
"Huh. You mean you'll let me?"
"Don't be tiresome, woman. You know you're our ticket into there. Now remove the veil, and let's ride."
He barely spared enough attention to see that she did as commanded. They approached the border guards with confidence. Better to appear secure and legitimate, approaching a line of hard-faced desert warriors holding. . . were those truly lightning-sticks? Most likely, although he'd never heard tell of Dargasi using any kind of magic before. Maybe they were just mundane, non-magical staves.
"Halt and declare your intentions," the middle rider barked out. He nudged his horse forward, and Derfek noted that at least one rumor had truth to it. The horse wore no tack at all, controlled solely by the rider's will.
"Our names are Ralla and Lorrine, and we are traders," Derfek said. He ignored the startled look the woman shot at him. "I am a Seeker, and claim passage by right of blood. And Lorrine is half Dargasi by birth. Let us pass!"
He wished he'd thought to claim Seeker heritage annums ago. Then he wouldn't need the clingy, somewhat headstrong, not altogether skilled woman. But she'd provide a great back-up plan if the Dargasi didn't believe his claim.
"A Seeker? Ha!" The border guard laughed in his face, then spat near Derfek's horse's feet. "You have less of the look of that people than my horse does. But this woman. . . "
The guard rode closer, staring at Lorrine. "Woman. Who were your parents?"
"My mother's name was Malina," she said, and that was as far as she got.
The guard rocked back on the horse's back, eyes wide. "Malina. . . She survived, then. And you are of the right age. . . Malina's Shame, you are no half-blood. Your blood is as pure as it comes."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Royalty begs of no one." He twisted around, waved urgently at one of the other riders. When the man came forward, the guard sent him to fetch. . . someone important, Derfek couldn't quite catch the name.
"Well?" Derfek said, impatient. "Are you going to let us pass?"
"Settle, puppy." The hawklike nose most Dargasi sported served to make the man look extra fierce. He glared at Derfek. "That is not my decision to make."
"Whose, then?"
"No one's, if you do not settle
and be silent." He upped the ferocity in his glare and Derfek subsided. But he couldn't sit still. He fidgeted, fiddling with his amulet, picking at the horse's mane. The border guard shifted his gaze to Lorrine, who looked back at him, passive and puzzled.
"What did you mean when you said I'm no half-blood?"
"Your questions will be answered shortly," the man responded. "I will not confuse you further, as I do not know the entire story, knowing instead only rumor and myth."
So they sat and waited, in a thoroughly uncomfortable situation, while the mid-morning sun started ramping up for the day's intense heat and horse tails swished at insects.
Then hoofbeats broke the intense silence, and a new man rode up, on a blazing red-chestnut horse. His desert robes billowed in the wind of the horse's speed, making him look just like a hero out of a painting. The only thing lacking to complete the effect, his sword, hung quiescent in its sheath. A good thing, of course, given the circumstances, but it would have made the image perfect if he'd held the curved blade raised overhead.
The newcomer eased his horse to a snorting halt in front of Lorrine, staring at her with piercing black eyes. He gave Derfek a single glance, then dismissed him utterly.
"Leave us," he said, and the other Dargasi dispersed instantly. Lorrine looked at him, then at Derfek. Derfek edged his horse in a touch closer. I'm not going anywhere, the motion said.
"So. Your name, woman?"
"My name is