Aonva sat in history class, writing down every word the teacher said. Most of it was familiar to her; she’d read through her textbook three times already, in case a quiz was thrown at them without warning. While Sirshi insisted she didn’t need to be that prepared, Aonva didn’t think there was such a thing as “over prepared”.

“After the war, and Torpn became part of Skwyr, more cities came under the court’s rule. Word spread of the possibilities, the safety, and the opportunities the court could provide. Until then, most of the cities had been under the rule of tyrants. This caused the cities to seek out the court’s aide.” Master Rondin stopped talking, and Aonva reviewed everything she knew in anticipation of another question. “Naxta, there were three cities that joined the kingdom next. Name one of them.”

A boy toward the back of the class stood up. His face was always on the brink of a smirk. “I don’t know.”

Master Rondin glowered at him. “Guess.”

Aonva didn’t know how Master Rondin managed to pack so much frustration and exasperation into a single syllable.

The words you speak are just as important as the tone with which you speak them.

Without hesitation, Naxta said, “Zensin.”

Master Rondin’s gaze didn’t ease any. “No. While the acquisition of Zensin was invaluable in establishing a relationship with the other kingdoms, it wasn’t one of the first three to seek the court’s rule. Apprentice Aonva, would you please tell us what they were?”

Aonva stood up and addressed Master Rondin to avoid anyone else’s gaze. “Moud, Bimun, and Sarona.”

“Very good.”

The chime of bells sounded throughout the school. Students immediately began rushing to gather their things.

“For next week, I want an essay on the reasons the cities gave for joining the kingdom. You need to include at least five reasons.”

Aonva gathered her notes and put them back in their place in her bag. If everything stayed organized, she wouldn’t waste time finding it, and she needed more time to study.

She had only just left the classroom when someone called to her.

Naxta walked up to her, still with that same half-smirk on his face.

“You know this stuff, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

She wished she had something to hide behind. She wanted to shrink away from him. Few people who weren’t teachers ever paid direct attention to her, and she didn’t care for it. She didn’t want Sirshi’s extreme of rejecting most human contact, though, so she had to get used to it.

“Then you can help me out with it.”

“Oh. Um… I guess.”

“Great. Tomorrow after class. We can work on the essay together.”

“Um… Okay. We can meet in the library, if that’s okay with you. It’s fine if it’s not, though. We don’t have to do anything, I guess.”

“Great. See you there.”

Naxta walked away with his friends, smiling and laughing with them. Aonva hoped they weren’t laughing at her. No, they wouldn’t be, would they? Maybe it was her hair. Roshil liked it, or maybe she was only being polite. Maybe it was ridiculous. It must’ve been. Her parents were right; no one would like her unless she fit in better. Being a complete neurotic mess was enough to drive any normal person away.

Roshil would’ve told her that normal was overrated. Even after everything they’d been through over the past year, Roshil was always nice to her. And Sirshi didn’t care one way or another how Aonva did her hair. Or that she overreacted to everything and couldn’t stay calm to save her life.

Aonva started toward the door to the castle in a daze. Her mind and head were so rarely in the same place. Just another reason why she didn’t have friends apart from Roshil. Sirshi was sort of her friend, but she was more Roshil’s friend than Aonva’s. Maybe she could make friends with Naxta. She couldn’t think of a time he’d made fun of her, unlike some of her other classmates.

As she reached the doors to the castle from the school, she met up with Roshil coming from natural sciences.

“I never realized how many plants could kill you,” Roshil said. “Don’t worry, though; most of them don’t grow around here. How was history?”

“It was okay,” Aonva said, trying not to launch into a lecture on everything Master Rondin had said minutes ago. “Um… I won’t be at the library tomorrow after class. I mean, I will be, but… but I’ll be helping one of my classmates with his work.”

“That’s fine, he can hang out with us.”

“No, I mean… I’m helping him… alone. The two of us.”

“Oh.” Realization came over Roshil. “Like… Like a date?”

“What? No! I mean, I don’t think so. Not that I would say no to one, but I don’t know him that well, although he seems really nice, and he doesn’t make fun of me like some of my classmates, and—”

“Who’s making fun of you? Let me know, and Sirshi and me will take care of them.” She emphasized this point by punching one hand with the other.

“No! You—” She paused as they stepped into the castle and a tingling spread through her body. “You don’t need to hurt anyone.”

“I’m not going to hurt them,” Roshil said. “Father says never do anything directly. If it can’t be traced back to you, you can’t get in trouble.”

Aonva had long since learned that trying to dissuade Roshil from anything her father had told her was pointless. According to Lord Grund, the best way to handle that was to distract Roshil.

“I asked Our Lady Arch Mage about a spell to read books,” Aonva said, hoping that was a good enough distraction. “She said there has been some work on it with Essence Magic.”

Roshil scowled for a moment, an expression that to a passerby might look like anger, but Aonva knew to be her “thinking” face.

“Never heard of it.”

“She said it was still theoretical. The idea is sort of like weaving. You can use weaving to learn something attached to a person’s ‘essence’, like their name or gender identity. Something that’s at the core of who they are. The theory is that a book’s contents are at the core of what they are, so if a thread could be attached to a book, it could be used to read the book. The problem is, we can only attach threads to living things, and even then can only get basics from them, not emotion or anything.”

Roshil shrugged. “So what? Mother used to say that something was only impossible until it wasn’t.”

Aonva paused to file that away. Roshil rarely spoke of her mother, so any information Aonva was lucky enough to get was valuable.

“I have to go to the forge,” Roshil said. “Are we still eating dinner together?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t we be?”

“I didn’t know if you wanted to eat dinner with your new friend.”

“Oh no, he’s not an apprentice. We couldn’t eat together.”

“Okay.” That seemed to cheer up Roshil a little. “I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah. See you for dinner.”

#VolumeThree #TrueFriends

Aonva sat in one of the study rooms in the library. She reviewed what she’d brought with her again: her notes from the last four months of class, their textbook, and spare notebooks in case Naxta forgot something. This didn’t make her feel any less nervous, but she didn’t feel like she was going to be sick anymore, so it was helping a little.

Naxta strode into the study room. Unlike Aonva, nothing bothered him. He’d never been worried about anything in his life.

Aonva jumped to her feet when he arrived. She brushed some hair out of her face, criticizing herself for not putting it back in braids. Even if Naxta was from Alforn — or at least his family was — he’d still think her hair was ugly.

“Hi, Naxta,” she said in a soft voice.

“Hey.” He slid into the chair across from her and leaned back.

“Um… Right.” Aonva sat down and opened her notebook to her notes. “So… um… with what do you need help?”

“It’s that essay Rondin gave us,” he said. “You know? Five reasons why people wanna be in the court?”

Aonva didn’t need him to spell it out for her, she’d written hers last night. The court provided religious and political freedom, social acceptance, and economic stability. Master Rondin had told them all of those during class. There was a longer bulleted list in their textbook too.

“I mean,” he continued, “why would anyone wanna be here? It’s so boring, you know? Like, nothing ever happens here. Except last year when that dragon burned down a whole farm, but that wasn’t even inside the city. It’s so boring, you know?”

What Naxta called “boring”, Aonva considered “safe”. That remained at the top of her list of reasons never to step outside the court walls. How could anyone consider “boring” a bad thing?

“Well… um… there’s a good section about it in our book,” she said, pulling her textbook to her.

“Oh, yeah, that thing. I lost mine weeks ago.”

Aonva fumbled her textbook for a moment while she was leafing through to one of several marked pages.

“Oh. Well… um… I’ve got mine, so you can use that today.”

“Alright.”

She found the page with the list on it, then turned the book to face him. “There’s this page, which has a lot of reasons why people wanted to join the court. Master Rondin already explained some of them. I took notes on those, so I can find those if you give me a moment.”

“Sure.”

Aonva left the book and started going through her notes. Once again, she’d put markers on the pages she’d been expecting to use. “I don’t know how much you remember from class, but I take notes on everything, so in case you missed something, I’ve got it.”

“Okay.”

She turned her notes toward him, then looked him over. He hadn’t brought a pack with him, or anything for that matter.

“Do… do you need something with which to write?”

“No, I’m not really good at writing.”

Aonva took the pieces of parchment she’d brought with her, along with a pen and ink. She paused, considering what he’d just said. Before she could question it, he spoke again.

“You got everything,” he said. “You got something to eat? I’m starving.”

Aonva bit back the horror at the thought of eating anything in the library.

“No… I’m sorry, I don’t.”

Crumbs would end up everywhere, what if someone spilled a drink on the books and they were ruined, or what if they attracted bugs, or…

He took the pen and parchment from her, then looked at the book again. “That’s a lot of words.”

Aonva didn’t know how to respond to that. Sirshi would’ve had plenty to say about him, but none of it would’ve been nice. Aonva glanced at the study room door. Was Roshil in the library? Maybe Aonva should’ve invited her too. Roshil would’ve had the same essay to write, and she wasn’t as diligent about her work as Aonva was. Although, Roshil would’ve laughed at Naxta by now, and Aonva didn’t want that. If she had a chance to make a new friend, she should try.

Aonva pointed at the list on the page. “That’s the important part. The book expands on each of those items in the later paragraphs. So most of the work is rewording what’s written later.”

“This still doesn’t make sense,” Naxta said. “Maybe I could see yours. It’ll make sense then.”

She glanced at her pack. Her own essay was with her, but she wasn’t comfortable letting him see it. Where was the harm in it, though? It wasn’t as though he were going to copy it entirely, but it was the best summary she had of the information they needed. Surely it’d save Naxta a lot of time if he had a more complete summary than what was in the book.

She reached for her pack and pulled out her essay. She pointed to the first paragraph. “The court provides religious freedom, allowing anyone to worship anything, so long as it doesn’t disrupt the lives of other people, and they don’t force it on anyone else. That’s one example.” She pointed to the original paragraph in the book. “The book says much the same thing, but takes a lot longer to say it. Maybe… maybe you can put it into your own words, then expand it when you write your final essay.”

“‘Final essay’?” The way Naxta said it, a “final essay” was a fate worse than death.