Still, while this oft told story was a point of pride for her dah, for her it was laced with an uncomfortable mix of shame and anger. Her mother—maybe both her parents—had abandoned her in the swamps, surely left to die, perhaps because she had been born afflicted, the surfaces of her eyes glazed to a bluish white.
“How I loved ya,” her dah said, admitting another truth. “Even if you hadn’t been picked to join the firstyears at the Cloistery. Though my heart just about burst when I heard you passed the test.”
“It was an accident,” she muttered.
He coughed out a gout of smoke. “Don’t say that. Nothing in life is simple chance. It was a sign the Mother still smiles on you.”
Nyx didn’t believe as devoutly as him, but she knew better than to contradict him.
At the time, she had been a housegirl at the school, assigned to washing and scrubbing. She had been mopping one of the testing wards when she tripped over a tumble of small blocks—some stone, others wooden—on the floor. Fearing they might be important, she gathered them up and set them atop a nearby table. But curiosity got the better of her. While neatly stacking them, she felt how different shapes fit against one another. It was how she experienced much of the world around her—then and now—through the sensitivity of her fingers. With no one around, she began fiddling with the blocks and lost track of the time, but eventually the ninescore of shapes built themselves into an intricate structure with crenellated towers and jagged walls that formed a six-pointed star around the castle in the center.
Lost in her labors and concentrating fully on her work, she had failed to notice the gathering around her. Only when done did she straighten, earning gasps from her hidden audience.
She remembered one nonne asking another, “How long has she been in here?”
The answer: “I left when she came in with the mop and pail. That was less than one ring ago.”
“She built the Highmount of Azantiia in such a short time. We give the aspirants an entire day to do the same. And most fail.”
“I swear.”
Someone had then grabbed her chin and turned her face. “And look at the blue cast to her eyes. She’s all but blind.”
Afterward, she had been granted a spot among the firstyears, entering the Cloistery a year younger than anyone else. Only a handful of children from the village of Brayk had ever been granted entrance to the school, and none had climbed higher than the third tier. She secretly took pride in this accomplishment, but it was hard to maintain that satisfaction. As she climbed the tiers with the same shrinking class, the others never let her forget her lowly beginnings. They shamed her for the stink of the silage about her. They teased her for her lack of fine clothes and manners. And then there was her clouded vision, a wall of shadows that continually separated her from the others.
Still, she found solace in her dah’s joy. To stoke that happiness, she kept steadfast in her studies. She also found pleasure in learning more about the world. It was like climbing out of the darkness of a root cellar and into a bright summer day. Shadows remained, mysteries yet to be revealed, but each year more of the darkness about the world lifted. The same curiosity with which she handled those blocks in the testing ward remained and grew with each tier gained.
“You will make it to your ninthyear,” her dah said. “I know it in my bones.”
She gathered his confidence into her heart and held it there. She would devote everything to make that happen.
If nothing else, for him.
Off in the distance, a ringing echoed from the heights of the Cloistery. It was the Summoning Bell. She had to be in her latterday studies before they rang again. She did not have much time.
Her dah heard it, too. “Best you get going, lass.”
She gained her feet by the hearth and reached to his hand, feeling the wiry muscles under thin skin, all wrapped around strong bones. She leaned and kissed him, finding his whiskered cheek as surely as a bee to a honeyclott.
“I’ll see you again when I can,” she promised him, remembering she had sworn the same earlier to Gramblebuck. She intended to keep that promise to both.
“Be good,” her dah said. “And remember the Mother is always looking out for you.”
As she headed toward the door, she smiled at her dah’s undying faith in both her and the Mother Below. She prayed it was not misplaced—not with either of them.
3
SENSING THE PRESS of time, Nyx returned along the same path that brought her home. Only now she wielded her spare cane ahead of her, a worn staff from when she was years younger. Its length was nicked and pitted from long use. It was also slightly shorter in length than the newer one she had abandoned in the classroom. Still, it felt like a comfortable old friend in her hand. She swept it along ahead of her. Though she knew the path well, the cane’s assurance and weight helped steady her.
She quickened her pace. It would not be good to be late, not after this morning’s travails. Once past the school gates, she dashed up along the six tiers. She was breathless upon reaching the seventh, but she made it before the second Summoning Bell.
Relieved, she hurried to the left, away from the shame of the astronicum dome. She intended to collect her other cane later, when no one was looking. Each morning, their studies were devoted to the matters of the world: the riddles of arithomatica, the dissections of biologica, the applications of balances and measures. The latterdays were spent in the scholarship of histories, the orders of religions, and the literata of the ancients.
She preferred the mornings, mostly due to the amount of reading involved later in the day. Though her fingertips were deft, they were not sensitive enough to read the ink impressed into the sacred tomes. To help her with her studies, a young acolyte had been assigned to her as an aide. Jace had failed in his fifthyear, but rather than being sent home, he had been offered a place at the school in the scriptorium, mostly copying texts, but also serving as her eyes. During the day, he softly recited what she needed to understand, sometimes continuing in her dormitory cell at night.
She rushed to where he usually waited. While Jace could have made her life even more difficult, he was kind and patient with her. She also suspected he might be fond of her in ways more than tutorial. Jace was four years older, but he was far more boyish than even her fellow seventhyears. To help compensate, he grew a scruff of beard to roughen his round face. His sedentary life contributed to a wide belly and a slight wheeze when he hurried to keep up with her. But he, more than anyone, could make her laugh. In many ways, he was the reason she could tolerate her latterday studies.
She headed to the archway outside the scriptorium. As she rounded a corner, she heard her friend’s telltale huff, heavier and pained, as if he had run all the way here. She smelled the odor of lime on his clothes, indicating he had spent the morning preparing fresh vellum for his work.
“Jace, I’m sorry I’m late. We should—”
Then a new note struck her nose. Bitter and rich in iron. It wafted off of him with each exhale. Blood. Startled, she tripped over something on the ground. Even her cane had missed it. She fell and realized quickly it was one of her friend’s legs. Why was Jace sitting under the archway? Her hand patted up his body.
“Jace, what’s wrong?”