Raja Haniya took a long drink from her glass then sunk onto her chair. She playfully bit her lip and fingered the silver balances that hung from her necklace. Then her hands landed on the table. She smiled.
"A blonde-haired merchant with silver flags waving on top of his two-master docks in the harbour. His ship has holes in it that have been roughly patched up. He says he's here to sell furs and honey wine. He has five silverlings and an Ician circle. The rent for a ship is three asses. The dockmaster rushes into the base and wants you to arrest the merchant, but he's too shocked to tell you why. But why should you head to the harbour right away?"
Sci scratched her head. These riddles came with an overload of information that one didn't need. Her first focus was to focus on the numbers. She thought out loud as it helped her find the correct solution. "Five silverlings is about two asses and a half, and an Ician circle is as much as a piece of Greenlander gold these days, which is also one ass. So there's no issue with the payment. So the wares, maybe... Silvermark's products are often of subpar quality. But one would not arrest a man for trying to sell mediocre fur." A cool breeze fluttered down, cooling down the sweat on her skin. It gave her the answer. "The Silvermarker only has northern money, not even a piece of Greenlander gold. He's desperate to sell his wares and go on land because either the Greenlanders or the Jade Islanders chased him from his waters. He's a wizard—that's why the dockmaster is so shocked."
The Raja of mathematics kept a blank stare as she turned her head towards the man with the black lines under his eyes. "Raja Tarek."
"Name the fourteen volcanoes of Scoria in ascending order of their last eruption," he said right away.
"Last eruption?" Sci repeated. Indra's geography book had shown a picture of their heights, and a detailed explanation of how the eruptions worked. Not all eruptions had been mentioned, not in the geography book at least. She counted on her fingers, remembering stories of her father sailing past Pride a few years ago. But there had been another eruption after that. "Patience, Temperance, Sloth, Charity... "She hesitated as she saw the numbers dancing in front of her eyes... "No, Greed, then Charity, Kindness, Gluttony, Lust, Envy, Chasity..." she paused. Those had been in the textbooks; the rest more recent. "Then I think Wrath, Humility, Pride, and Diligence."
"Raja Layla," Tarek said.
The woman with tiny silver scrolls dangling from her ears looked friendlier than she was, Indra had warned her. Most students failed her questions; she was merciless. Despite her brother's help and advice, Sci had long given up on the classics.
"Can you recite the twenty-fifth verse of the third chapter of A Night in Socota?" Raja Layla asked.
Sci decided to spare herself the humiliation. "No, I can't."
The Raja cocked her head. "You're not even going to try?"
"No, I'm sorry."
"You should only apologise to yourself," she said, her nose up in the air. "Raja Kader."
Raja Kader was one of the four new faces among the Rajas. She was far younger than her colleagues. Her excessive sun and moon jewellery screamed Parrot. "It's a shame you were not part of my class at Orchid Hall," she began. "I thoroughly revised the work of Raja Helle. No soldier should concern themselves with gravity and positions of the stars in the sky. All that matters is the Holy Fourteen."
So science had been replaced by religion.
"So, Scirocco, which sin tips the balance towards the Seven Hells when the soul is weighted outside the Heavenly Halls?" Raja Kader asked.
Her lips considered uttering Pride but even though she had barely any saliva left, Sci swallowed her answer. There was a reason the Queen had appointed a Raja of religion. Another test to make sure only those of the right faith enter the army. "That is a strange question," Sci said instead, discarding Nana's beliefs and going for the common stance. "One must strive to have no sins. Every sin is one too many."
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The Witch's Hour (A New Dawn #2.5)
Viễn tưởng[Novella]As a child, Sci was scarred by her own mother for being a witch. While the wound has healed and her shawl now covers her face, Sci struggles to remain deaf to the call of the desert wind. She works hard to get into the Scorian army, taking...
