Ecdysis

Chapter 78. Numbers Matter

“You are playing rather aggressively today.”

I hummed. “Just quicker.”

“You know my moves in advance?”

“I would be even faster if that was the case.” I slid my rook forward. “Your moves, however, carry a certain intent and they do it most flawlessly. And you aren’t the only one here who can adapt to his opponent.”

“Do you think I would look good in Kishava colours?”

I cracked a smile. “What you should be asking is whether their colours would fit the grey hair that you would undoubtedly give them.”

Albin shook his head. “Better than Kosenya if you ask me. You can at least tell Kamshad and Kishava apart by the form of their ears, but Kamshad and Kosenya? Not only are their ears sharp and straight but have you seen the muscles on some of the Ladies of the House of Defence? They are almost as big as the warforms of the House of Offence!”

I grimaced as he deftly answered my push. My brain and Harald working overtime helped very little when it came to dealing with Albin’s plays. But I was also parsing through a lot more information than a mere game of chess in front of me. “All of Emanai will lie in ruin from such confusion.”

“You seem distracted. Are you trying to imagine a grey-haired Kosenya or are you trying to imagine my kids with Mushaf?”

I sighed. “Five of my patients were killed recently. Poison, since they were made to look as if they died from ill-treated wounds.”

His hand paused mid-move. “So it wasn’t just a rumour, then.”

I glanced at him. “You were aware?”

His owlish eyes of blue met mine. “There are thirty-seven rumours floating through both arms about you alone, my dear bastard son. How is my beloved Creature-wife doing by the way? It appears that I haven’t spoken to her since you were born.”

“Heartbroken, no doubt. Have you heard of anything else?”

“None from my maniple are dead, that I can tell you.”

I nodded. “I know. Whoever did this made sure to avoid my maniple as well. Were you watching your spears perchance?”

“No more than a proper Manipular would. I trust your concoctions more than your First Spear. How many did you treat in total? Fifty? Sixty?”

“More or less; that doesn’t mean those five were an acceptable loss.”

“I am not denying that. What I am saying is the culprit had plenty to choose from. And they were wise enough to avoid those you would notice immediately. Your finger, your maniple, my spears.” He glanced away in thought. “They also appeared to pick… the ones that aren’t missed by their commanders too much. The focus is on your general incompetence, not the specific men that you’ve ‘killed’ with it.”

I pressed my lips thin. “Not that I have access to their corpses to prove my innocence anyway. Why can’t villains simply cackle and profusely monologue about their evil plots?”

“Are you concerned about your honour across Kiannika?”

“No. Not particularly. I am concerned that whoever has done it will be satisfied with their current results and skulk back into whatever dark crevasse they slithered out of in the first place. I want them to remain active. To make tracks.”

“Then you should better avoid my help. The overt kind, at the very least.” Albin tugged at his magical rabbit ear. “Don’t forget that Azhar Mesud is a Manipular of Ulastai. If they were too cautious to touch my spears then, my actions now will keep them equally wary.”

“Don’t know if that will change anything.” I took his knight. “Anaise was the one to break those news to me and she’d started pulling her strings even sooner than that. There are likely a handful of wermages, including the most beautiful and honourable Mushaf Davlat, who are already looking into this matter.”

He watched his piece leaving the board with a forlorn gaze. “And you wish the same fate on me, nevertheless.”

I tutted. “Don’t misunderstand me, I am neither disappointed nor frustrated by Anaise acting on her own. I am grateful. I do not know whether my current plans will work flawlessly or I am wasting my time playing spies. My wife, who is much more versed in the nuances of Emanai aristocracy, is capable of using means that I have no access to. Her actions might even force the culprit out into the open as they try to hide their tracks from an influential wermage, only to fall into my hands.

“It is likely that her involvement will be crucial if my ‘secret admirer’ is of a sufficiently high status.” I mused quietly. “Despite all that talk about daimonas, when it comes to putting uppity members of Pillar Houses to justice, I am still nothing but a murk.”

“Those things take time, Erf. Do you know how long it took me to stop the incessant pestering about potential marriages? Years. Until you came along. Laws apply even to the most prominent members of Emanai Pillars, as long as the evidence is unquestionable.”

“Whereas the validity of evidence is judged by the status of the witness in the society, and Orbs of Truth aren’t allowed unless the defendant wermage specifically welcomes their use. But this is a conversation for a different place and different time. Let us say that I am aware that the current system does maintain order in Emanai and leave it at that.” I lifted up my pawn and shook it at him. “It is not a marriage but a date. I am not your Matriarch, mother, or your sister to be that bold. Besides, we are talking about Azhar Mesud and no one else.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yes, we shall come back to the discussion on order and justice at some other time. I mentioned our laws to tell you that your target isn’t a ‘sufficiently elevated’ Emanai wermage. Not here. Not with Sophia Shebet Chasya, the Censor of Emanai, leading the arms. And, most importantly, not to target you or some other daimon. Their House will not survive the Censure, Pillar or not, and any ‘sufficiently elevated’ wermage is keenly aware of it.”

Rather than pushing his pawn forward, he lifted it into the air and let it fall. It froze in place.

His eyes twinkled at me. “You are facing someone’s loyal retainer. Either far away from their master or eager yet trusted enough to pursue their unspoken desires as they see fit. Collectors come in many shapes and forms and some of them do not simply ‘collect’. The Houses aren’t punished to the same extent if such acts are uncovered.”

“Really? I expected that to be the opposite. With slaves seen as mere property of their masters, incapable of independent thought, while ‘young masters’ are wilful but precious to their respective House to be so easily condemned…”

Albin blinked. “There are magical ways to prove it, Erf, don’t be silly. And I assure you that everyone and their Dominas will rush to stand in front of the Orb of Truth when the Censor starts pronouncing accusations. The system is made this way so that Emanai Manors take more manageable approaches to easing their frictions among each other. Forbid all options and they will simply pick the most effective one when they believe that their only choice is to act. An opponent without a good retreat route is an unpredictable opponent. Remember that.”

He leaned back but kept the time still. “You are looking for a retainer that is either a murk or carries an artefact to hide themselves in Flow. Either one or few in numbers. Too noticeable otherwise.”

I hummed. “That removes most of my potential suspects outright. It also shrinks the list significantly in general, but there are plenty of others remaining. Even my commander has how many? Thirty? First Bows and First Oars have just as many or more, especially the chariot palms. And I haven’t bothered to count Manipular retinues yet. Or siege engineers and arusak-at companies.”

Most of the soldiers had overlapping roles. I was a messenger, a spear, and a healer. I was Hajar’s gopher to Sophia and our Manipular and then the trusty shield and spear on the field. I was still not sure where a challenger stood in that hierarchy of titles. Irfan, our finger officer, was her adjutant. Ten fingers under her command — ten Irfans. Two messengers, with me being the primary one. Initially — to keep the ‘Pillar Lady’s boy-toy’ from the front line and now — due to my rapport with the General. One flag-bearer to tell everyone and their mother where the fuck we were on a battlefield and two slave servants per finger that were shared with the First Spear.

“Retainer, not a servant that chops wood and grinds your grain,” Albin reasoned back. “Pay attention to those around Manipulars and distinguished members of the Pillar Manors first. The Houses of War specifically, as their retainers can move around the arm with greater ease.”

I nodded in acceptance, but there was one more part bugging me. Right in front of my face.

“How dangerous might those ‘artefact-wielding’ adversaries be,” I wiggled my finger at the pawn in the air, “if you are using that?”

“How dangerous is the darkness to the blind?”

“Point taken.” I tilted my head at the floating pawn. “Shall we resume our match?”

“Oh? Not going to enact your ‘daimonic’ plans to catch that prey?”

I smiled. “They have been enacted already. I am in the process of gathering data. Then I will be in the process of parsing said data. Who is who. Who knows who. Who said to whom and what did they say. What did they eat and how well they were chewing their food. Every drink shared and every gift exchanged. For every single one of my previous patients and everyone you mentioned today. All of that takes time.”

“You can do that while sitting here and pondering over the moves?”

“That is the trick, Albin. I can’t do that at all. No human can.” It was possible to augment a human body to perform AI-scale data processing, but it wouldn’t be a human anymore. It was also unnecessary in my case. “But I have surveillance tools to assist me. All that knowledge by itself would be extremely distracting to have. I don’t need to know how many times Aref blinked last night or how often he keeps scratching his balls.”

“Aref?” Albin glanced around, “Who?”

I waved my hand at the nearby sitting chicken-legged hut. When we camped overnight, Kiannika’s siege arusak-at ‘nested’ down as guard towers. “Some murk standing guard in the northwest tower behind you. See my point? A lot of that information is useless. I am currently searching for a lucky droplet in the ocean — nefarious plans being discussed in secret or silver excha-”

“Can you hear through the silence runes?”

“I can read the lips. But all that data collection has a secondary aspect. By comparing and contrasting trillions of others, I can divulge the patterns. That ball-scratching? You have a pubic lice outbreak in the fifth and sixth maniple of Ulastai. Their Manipulars are likely aware, but now I am as well. Might be useful later as my patients will remain unaffected. Either to prove my skill or force the poisoner to try and ‘correct’ the ‘discrepancy’.”

Albin clapped his hands. “Unsightly topics aside, impressive! If you can do the same with enemy forces, I can see you being quite the catch for many Generals as an aide. But you have a certain size limit or you wouldn’t be that intent to make the list shorter. Am I correct?”

“It is the duty of a Navigator to be aware of their crew. To know the patterns that shape and move the community,” I murmured. “It is not the size limit as much as it is the time constraint. It is like having a single pick-axe and a mountain with gold inside. You can mine an entire mountain and get all of the gold but it would take centuries. Easier to identify where the ore vein is and start from there.”

It was the duty of a tree-ship to assist us in such manners. But Lif was not available and I had to offload the data processing to Harald and Chirp. A drop in the bucket when compared to Lif, but not a drop in the ocean when compared to me. Their nervous systems were designed to handle something like this. Mine wasn’t.

I did glare at him, just in case. “Don’t even try to turn me into Sophia’s aide! You hear me?”

“She would neither need nor accept that kind of help. Not at the scale that you fear. Although…” He frowned to himself and leaned in closer. “Did you bring those tools for this campaign with the intent to use them?”

“Against our enemies, Albin, nothing more. Pick-axes and mountains — it is too taxing to do it without a proper reason. I tried using them against Creatures but that didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. The Seafood is too spread out and too individually dangerous.”

The canopy was too dense further away from the road, while Creatures blended with trees in more ways than colour. I needed a different type of drone that could cover more ground and was easier to replace than Chirp. A swarm-type would be best, if not for two glaring problems. Cheaper and smaller drones were not as independent as something like Chirp and required more than occasional connection to exchange processed data. I needed a host or the only thing I would get is constant and incessant headaches. The second problem was that either hosts or swarms would be very, very obvious. Beyond ‘make the spy go deep into hiding’ and more at ‘make Pillar Manors start asking questions I wasn’t ready to answer’ levels of obvious.

At the moment, Creatures weren’t a significant enough concern for me to go that far. There were a few more attacks that hit our arm during the march, and even one night incursion, but I was neither close nor necessary to fight them off. The casualty rate was pretty similar too.

“And what about an enemy force?”

I goggled at him. “You want me to-”

He waved me off. “No, I don’t want that kind of help either. The arms have plenty of scouts to spot and detect enemy forces. While the balloon can see smoke and dust on the horizon. But what about spying on, let’s say, an enemy General? In the middle of a battle?”

I paused for a second and nodded in understanding. “Who might have an artefact of his own.”

Albin smiled slightly. “There are ways around that, but it is good to have options. If you end up uncovering something instrumental, you can leverage that deed for significant concessions upon your return to Samat. My sister is imperious but honourable, while the Houses of War respect battlefield valour.”

“How much time do I have? I would prefer to finish this task first.”

“We will reach the edge of the Forest in a couple of days. Expect skirmishes to start almost immediately. They will know where we are and, most importantly, they know where we are heading.”

“Harassment attacks?”

“Absolutely.”

“Possible force composition? Anything to pay attention to?”

“Sheydayan raids can be quite devastating but our maniples will be ready.”

“Sheydayan?”

“Elite warrior groups. Wermages. Unmistakable in appearance. Think the body of a large tiger or a lion and a murk torso on top. That’s a sheyda. Strong and deadly like a wermage yet fast like a chariot. They can either rain spells while running by or smash into unprepared ranks with their bodies and open breaches by scattering the front lines. The rest are similar to our people.”

“Do they ask riddles?”

“Knowing you, they might. But they usually go for something more practical like claw swipes and throwing boulders with magic.”

I shook my head. “How barbaric of them to do that. A couple of days might not be enough, but most of the work would be over by then and possible traps — laid out. I also think that roaming bands of bloodthirsty sphinxes and whoever sends them around might be a tad more important than some eager attendant of a scorned wermage trying to settle the score.”

His eyes turned harsh. “Make sure that your actions remain unnoticed by all. The politics of Barsashahr are as quick as they are brutal. Whoever is leading those forces has climbed to that position over the corpses of many.”

“I will. I’ve been doing that all this time, after all.”

“And yet, every Pillar knows about the ‘Kiymetl daimon’ by now.” Albin shook his head. “I am being serious here. Just as you said with my chatrang, your actions carry a certain flavour behind them that makes you quite noticeable. If you learn something — tell it to me or Sophia. I assure you that the last thing you want is having that General interested in you directly.”

“You know why other Pillars know of me as a daimon. Sometimes it is better to redirect than to hide or lie. Let them make the mistakes for you.”

I pulled the pawn from the air and passed it back to him. “Let us continue.”

“What did I do to deserve the fate of molestation!”

“You have a sister that you teased with me for too long. She wants revenge.”

“But a hundred toys!? Surely, you can’t fall that low?”

“For a hundred toys? Of course not. My honour is spotless and I will never betray your trust. For an artefact piano? There are times in our lives when one has to take one for the team.”

His hand froze halfway to the pawn. “Oh?”

I smiled. “Something tells me that if you liked the guitar, you might appreciate this musical instrument as well.”

“Is it better?”

“Better is a relative term. Both of them belong to the family of stringed instruments but they are played in a different manner. You are well aware of how the guitar achieves its variety of notes through the combination of strings and frets. The piano does the opposite. An average one uses two hundred and thirty strings-”

Albin started laughing.

“Very funny. To play eighty-eight notes. As you can imagine, the ‘murk’ pianos are somewhat bulky.”

“And you are going to use the eighty-eight Divine Gifts just to fit it inside a purse!?” He slapped his knee in laughter. “Damn it, Erf. I could kill some people just by stating what you are doing sometimes. Please don’t let Matriarchs inspect your future contraption — they will try to strangle you on the spot just to hide their shame.”

I huffed in indignation. “I see no shame in trying to make good music.”

“What will be next? A thousand strings?”

“Two hundred and seventy-six whistles that you have to press with your hands and feet.” I scratched my chin. “You know, a portable organ would be outright scary. Play one in the Forest and half of the nearby enemy forces would shit their pants on principle. And half of our arms. Out of a sense of camaraderie, no doubt. But the current artefacts might be too weak to have a proper impact.”

“Now you are killing me!” Albin wheezed.

Yeva

“I don’t mind but,” Isra scratched her horn, “are you sure that you wish to plant it here?”

She gestured at the nearby furnaces and machinery. “It is not a great place for a sapling to take root. If it doesn’t catch on fire by accident, it might simply wither from the foul gases.”

Yeva smiled. “Your concerns are valid but this isn’t an average sapling. It will grow well and fast and will provide plenty of shade for your assistants to relax under.”

“Relax?” The wermage huffed and crossed her arms. “I won’t let them laze around!”

“Occasional breaks are important,” Yeva spoke as she threw another shovelful of dirt aside. “They let thoughts settle into memories and prevent exhaustion of the mind. They won’t be making nails here, where a mistake can be quickly fixed with a tap of a hammer. You can’t undo a machined hole in the wrong place or a surface that was cut just a hair too deep. Subtractive manufacturing both provides and demands precision.”

“Uhm, Yeva,” Meila spoke with a slight tremble in her voice. “They are here.”

“I know. Hold the sapling and let me finish. Don’t worry about them — they are here for me and Isra, not you.”

“Your sight is in my heart, Isra Haleh.” Behind Yeva, an Enoch wermage offered her greetings. “It is an honour to greet you here in person — stories of your deeds are quickly spreading across our Manors and, when Zamindar Azrin herself had issued a call, I was among the first to stomp my hoof.”

“Your name is on my lips…” Isra frowned.

“My name is-”

“Not important.” Yeva finished that sentence for her. “Meila, please lower the sapling.”

“Isra Haleh? This one is?”

Yeva gently poured the dirt back. Not because the ‘sapling’ required such care, but to maintain the appearance. “The one who will be teaching you. If you are willing to earn the right to be taught. The one who will also decide if and when you are ready to apprentice under Isra Haleh.”

She heard them murmur among themselves but didn’t bother to listen. A few of them sent questioning glances at the master smith, but Isra simply shrugged her shoulders. “That was the agreement between the Domina and the Matriarch.”

“Are you the one who goes by the name of ‘Yeva’?”

Yeva dusted her hands and turned around. “That would be me. I see that you came here quite informed. Few know of me beyond these walls and fewer know my name.”

The werfox glanced at Yeva’s medallion. “Are you aware of the agreement between the two Matriarchs and your Domina, then? This is a very important deal for her Manor. Let us not put Aikerim Adal in an uncomfortable position, shall we?”

Yeva shook her head. “How many of you are here?”

“All of us.”

“Twenty-two. Because that is the number my Domina and I had agreed upon. Do you understand what this number implies?”

“The number holds no names,” one of the two lamuras spoke. “Some might stay, some might go, and others will come in their stead. It matters little as long as the number remains the same.”

“Precisely.” Yeva nodded. Among the rest, the two lamuras looked the least surprised and disgruntled by her antics. Shahin’s lessons, no doubt. “Twenty-two is the maximum I am willing to teach right now. As per the agreement, there are ten from the Kiymetl, ten from the Enoch, and two from the Esca. But those numbers can be less if I find myself unwilling to teach some of you and your Matriarch finds herself unwilling to send another. Or if there is no one willing to learn.”

“And what will you say to Nanaya Ayda, when you send away the last of the Kiymetl? Do you think you can hide under the kaftan of Aikerim Adal from the wrath of your Matriarch?” A werfox spoke up from the crowd.

“I will say that none of you could compare to the skill and diligence of Wrena Kiymetl Khayrat. Or Aikerim Kiymetl Adal and her immediate family.”

“Wrena… Khayrat? I am unfamiliar with that name. Who is her Domina?”

“She is one of this Manor. A master carpenter.”

The wermage sputtered. “A carpenter? Are you saying that she is a wer?”

“I am saying that she is capable. Whether she is a wermage, wer, or a murk is irrelevant.”

“A wermage has the time to perfect their craft and Flow to elevate it further. Murks lack the former, while wer lack sufficient control over their Sparks to do the latter. A wermage Kiymetl does not need to carve the wood, she can will it into any shape she wants.”

Yeva shook her head. “You didn’t come here to perfect your craft. You came here to learn a new one. Feel free to perfect it a century from now, once you grasp the foundations. I’ve seen what my Domina can do with wood by using her Kiymetl magic. It can do much but it has its limits.”

Tails of red twitched in unison. They certainly did not appreciate her words.

“And what would those limits be, honourable teacher?” one of them asked ever so sweetly.

“Your perception of the world around you. Can you make a truly flat surface? Flat enough that if you put two of them together they will stick to each other as if they were glued? How about making a piece that has a thickness of exactly one hundred hairs? And by ‘exactly’ I don’t mean ‘not a hair more or less’ but ‘not a hundredth of a hair more or less’. Both Isra Haleh and Wrena Khayrat can do that.”

“You speak as if you know our spell codices…”

Yeva shrugged. “You are welcome to prove me wrong anytime. My task is to teach you new ways to perceive the world. To look deeper into the nature of things and see the imperfections that others miss. To look at the complex and see the handfuls of simple. Learn that and you can begin your actual apprenticeship, for neither Isra nor Wrena need assistants that can’t even see the mistakes they make.”

“And the daimon? What kind of apprentices does he require?” a lamura probed.

“The ones who succeed at being apprentices of his apprentices first. There are no quick paths for you to find and his time is even more limited than mine. That brings me to my next topic. Teaching you is not my main duty. Neither is it my second, third, or even fifth. As such, certain aspects of ‘normal’ schooling will not be present.

“Don’t expect lashes, rattan whips, or any other sorts of ‘encouragement’. Not only are all of you full-grown adults, but each one of you is a skilled artisan and was specifically picked by your Matriarch to be here. As such, I expect you to understand reason. Either you are willing to learn and do it of your own volition or you walk out through the doors of this Manor and never look back. I expect you to fail occasionally, so you won’t be kicked out for a simple mistake, but I also expect you to learn from those failures in turn.

“Most of the inner estate will be off-limits to all of you. That includes tools, servants, and even trees. Treat anything not specifically allowed as forbidden. If you are unsure — ask before doing. You will be welcome in the learning hall, where you can study using the provided materials, and guest rooms will be made available for you to spend the nights. As you progress through your studies, you will be permitted to venture further and learn things in a more practical setting. The rest is likely similar to the Rhetor lectures you had in your childhood — there will be daily lectures for you to attend and the rest of the day to complete my assignments as you see fit.”

Yeva paused for a second. “Any questions?”

Some of the Enoch wermages turned their horns to the smith standing nearby. “Isra Haleh?”

She hefted one of her wrenches on her shoulder. “Some of you would have demanded more from your apprentices. Her offer is beyond reasonable.”

Despite using magic to tighten most nuts and bolts, Isra had developed a certain fondness for this tool. By her own words, a smith had to carry her striking hammer everywhere, so a machinist would need to have an appropriate wrench. Yeva’s suggestion that a micrometre might be more apt fell on deaf ears. Isra wanted a sceptre to wield and a sceptre she got.

“But is she-” the Enoch cast a glance at Yeva’s blindfold and gestured at her eyes.

“Am I fit to be a master? I hear that you have a hammer on your sash, so you should be one of the Enoch smiths. Am I correct?”

“Indeed. I have been perfecting my smithing for seventy years.”

“So you know how to make a nail or two.”

“How can one be called a smith if she does not? Give me a lump of iron and I can make you one on the spot.”

“And how many can you make in a day?”

“I am not sure what you think of me, but I am not a village smith or a military cobbler. Making nails for a whole day was never a part of my duties.”

Yeva tilted her head. “But you should be able to estimate the speed of your work, can you not? You know how quickly you can make one so you can count how many you can make in a day. Do you know the numbers?”

The hoof stomped on the ground. “Four thousand.”

Isra choked. “F-four?”

The wermage shrugged. “She asked me to use my speed at making one and count how many. I did as she asked.”

“Isra? Is that a respectable number for a smith?”

“Respectable, you say…” She twirled her hands as if floating an invisible nail in front of her and shuddered. “Depletion would be quite severe.”

The other smith flicked one of her tassels over her horn. “We don’t use Flow all the time, but that does not mean that we can’t use it.”

“A fair point. Isra Haleh, using your current knowledge and tools, how many nails can you stamp in a day? Without magic.”

“Uh…” She pulled out a wax tablet and started scratching at it with her stylus. “From wire stock or…?”

“Stock ingots, please. We don’t want them to accuse you of using a half-made product.

There was even more scratching. “Uhh… Ninety…a hundred…”

One of the werfoxes blinked. “Ninety nails?”

An Enoch nearby hissed at her “Don’t be so daft. Isra Enoch Haleh is a proper smith of Enoch and carries the medallion of a master. She is counting by handfuls at the very least.”

“You count nails by handfuls?”

“For hooves, yes.”

Isra sighed. “No, I would need more time to draw the wire. So it would be closer to ninety thousand in a day.”

“Thou-? Preposterous! Are you saying that you can make two or even three nails per heartbeat? For an entire day!?”

“More like four. It takes some time to turn stock into wire but then they are simply flying.” Isra chuckled. “Wrena has a rather weird cackle every time she sees the process.”

“How-?”

“Look at the spinning axles on the ceiling of the workshop,” a male Enoch whispered to her. “I think I see some automation being moved with them as well. They probably made a special mill that makes nails. Or even ten mills.”

“The one whispering to you is correct. No murk, wer, or wermage can do something that quickly. But a machine can. And Isra Haleh is the one who built it with my knowledge.” Yeva changed her tone into a more imperious one. “Consider this to be the last time when I had to prove my mastery to you. If you start to wonder once again, leave the Manor. You were given entrance here on a request from your Matriarchs; Nanaya Ayda and Zamindar Azrin had to offer quite a few concessions just so each one of you could speak to me directly. They walked into this Manor and asked Aikerim Adal what does she need. What does her daimon need. Or his wife. We already have two master artisans that we trust with our knowledge, so all that we needed were more apprentices.

“None of you had to be wermages. But your Matriarchs thought otherwise. While we could’ve picked anyone, they wanted you to be the first. Some of you are only here because Aikerim Adal refused to take the ones not versed in some craft. There were suggestions that I should teach second and third daughters of the Manors first. Believe me when I say that it is not I who will be explaining to your Matriarch why you no longer study at this Manor. Do I make myself clear?”

The wermages looked at each other. There were frowns and puffed-up tails but no one tried to test her limits further. As such, Yeva remained silent in turn. While Aikerim urged her to accept and Erf tended to have too much patience even for snobbish wermages, she expected them to make the final move themselves.

“Should we call you a teacher?”

“If you so desire. Or you can use my name, I am not particular about it. Oh, and one last thing. If you think that you can skirt some rules when no one is looking.

“Don’t.”