A Raire Gift

Chapter 7

We arrived at last, dirty and aching. The first part of the tour I brought Nanya on, was the women's bathing pool behind the dorm. After we were clean, and in clean clothing, we went inside. Lina had always bathed alone, so we left her while I showed Nanya the dining hall next, grabbing an early supper now that we were back. I didn't see any of my teammates. Next Nanya and I set up a temporary palette for until we were able to procure a bed. Lina returned sometime later, and after a quick conversation, we all drifted to sleep. I was clean, fed, and in a nice bed. I felt pretty content, aches, and pains excluded.
I awoke wishing I could go back to sleep. The various bumps and scrapes from our encounter with bandits were mostly healed, but they still hurt. I decided it was time to visit the healers.
I slipped out of the room, leaving the two girls still sleeping. I walked through the halls, still quiet this early and with so many yet to return.
The healers were in the infirmary, which meant walking all the way to the second floor of the academy. When I entered I saw only one person, standing off to the side and rifling through a desk. "Excuse me?"
The person jumped, but when she turned I recognized her uniform as that of the academy healers, although she wore her hair down, unlike any healer I had known. She smiled at me, "I'm sorry miss, you startled me." She laughed lightly, but it seemed off somehow. "How can I help you?"
I shook myself from my thoughts and explained the bruises and bumps Lina and I had received.
She nodded before turning towards a shelf near the back wall. After a moment of looking things over, she pulled a small glass jar with a cloth tied over the opening at the top. It was small, no bigger than a copper in width, and only around two inches tall, with a thick, muddy pinkish liquid in it. "This should help with any swelling and remaining aches. We keep these on hand in small containers for just such incidents, bruises, and small cuts are very common here," She gave me a rueful smile before continuing, it seemed rehearsed somehow. "Just make sure to return the jar when it's empty. You won't need much, just a thin covering on each place that aches. It should last you a while."
I thanked her and made my way back to the dorm room. I was considering the healer, who seemed wrong still. There was something about her eyes, glittering, but not in a pleasant way. They looked like pale green ice.
As I neared the bedroom door I pushed my troubling thoughts away. When I entered the room I found Lina already dressed and stretching for the day. Nanya still lay on the pallet, although she looked in my direction, her gaze cross and bleary.
I sat down on my bed and rolled up my left sleeve. The worst bruises were on my shoulder and forearm. "Lina, I visited the healers. The woman there gave me some kind of cream or balm." I opened the jar and smelled the substance. It smelled vaguely floral, with a bite that reminded me of mint.
Lina stopped stretching to watch me, before leaning back against the wall. She was frowning slightly. "None of the healers should be in yet. Are you sure?"
I shrugged, winced, and applied the stuff to my shoulder. It burned for a moment before fading into a cool, numb sort of feeling. I flexed my hand and lifted the shoulder several times. It was strange, the skin was numb, and yet I had full movement.
I put the strange stuff only on the worst of them and then offered the jar to Lina. She took it from me, but still wore that odd little frown. She had a large bruise along one hip, but beyond that had fared far better than I. Still, I had done better than I expected. They were half-starved and ill, but I still felt some satisfaction at escaping with only small cuts and a few lumps.
Lina and I left the room, with Nanya promising to put our things away once she woke up completely. Saying she would eat later.
When we entered the dining hall I saw a familiar face at our table. Marc was already here. He smiled wearily at us as we approached, I frowned, was he alright? He looked as though he hadn't slept in all the time he was gone. "Are you alright? You look exhausted. And not just travel exhaustion."
He sighed, "being the son of any king is exhausting, particularly being the first son."
I started. I knew he was the prince but had stopped thinking of him as such soon after meeting him. "I guess it would be," I said, still feeling strange with the reminder that he was more than just a friend and teammate.
The strangeness soon faded when he noticed our various scratches and multicolored patches of skin. He raised his eyebrows at first me, and then Lina. "What were the two of you doing? Riding under the horses?"
Lina snorted. "No, we just ran into some unexpected companions on our way here."
I nodded solemnly, "They had no manners, didn't even offer us young ladies a drink of water."
His eyebrows never lowered. Until finally he spoke. "Would it benefit me in any way to know who these poor unexpected companions were, or do they lay dead in the woods somewhere?"
Lina gave her calm, bland smile. I batted my eyelashes innocently, "Oh, not in a ditch. That would be unseemly."
Marc's expression grew steadily more concerned until I finally explained the situation with the bandits, with Lina supplying the details I tended to gloss over. "I stayed with Nanya while Audrey tossed them around a bit," Lina said, looking down slightly. Sounding maybe a bit too casual.
That caught Marc's attention. "And this Nanya would be?" He asked, copying Lina's careful casualty. The effect was ruined by the slight trembling at the corners of his mouth, and the amused glint in his eyes.
I was not so careful about my smile as Marc was. I grinned openly and told Marc of the pretty innkeeper's daughter I had known growing up, who had now come to stay with us.
Lina was quiet, which spoke volumes in itself. Lina was rarely quiet when a discussion involved her. But when I looked at her face through her hair, she only looked confused. I decided to drop it, and raised my brows at Marc, he dropped it too.
-
We sparred and practiced for most of the day, but my mind was absent.
Tena arrived around mid-afternoon, which surprised me. His home was the farthest so it stood to reason he would be the last of our group to return. He saw my expression and smiled tiredly. "I may love my sisters, but they exhaust me more and more each time I see them."
I laughed, he had told me of those interesting sisters. "Well, I would invite you to join us at the archery range but you look worn out. Go get some rest." I nudged his shoulder, and he trotted towards the dorm.
Lina walked away from Marc and me, saying she would be busy. She had seemed distant since I returned to the dorm that morning. I watched her go, "She's odd lately." I commented quietly.
Marc shook his head. "I hadn't noticed. Then again, I am weary. It is... tiring at home." He smiled, a sort of sad smile I couldn't quite place.
I had no response, so instead, we walked towards the archery range, where we were originally headed.
It was behind the academy's main building, and right beside the fenced-in sparring grounds.
I strung my bow and checked the fletching of my arrows, before putting a leather partial glove on my right hand, and strapping my brace over my left arm. It covered my inner arm from elbow to wrist and overlapped my palm slightly.
Once I knew everything was in place, I took my place behind the line marked in the ground. I stood with my feet a foot apart, my left planted just behind the line, and my right just ahead of it, standing at a slight angle from the target.
As soon as I was positioned correctly, I raised my hands, bow in one hand, arrow in the other. I shot several times, letting my thoughts wander. I did this almost absent-mindedly, it was habit at this point.
I reached behind me only to realize my quiver was already empty. I blinked, shook my head, and lowered my bow. I had hit the target every time, in a cluster at the center.
I was more than pleased with myself, it had felt like I was in a trance. I hadn't entirely been aware of shooting, I had just shot.
I turned to see Marc watching me, a strange look on his face. "Is something wrong? You're looking at me a little strangely." I laughed nervously.
He nodded slowly before answering, "Have you noticed your eyes lately? They seem lighter, and almost reflective. Especially just a moment ago."
He was still watching me with that strange expression. "My eyes? I noticed they were slightly brighter when I went home, but I assume it is more my expressions and mood than the actual color."
He nodded again and then smiled. "Your aim is better than I remember."
"Thank you, I honestly didn't notice until after I finished shooting them all. It was almost like someone else was guiding my arrows while I was lost in thought." I hadn't planned to say what I did. It just slipped out, my voice sounding odd to my own ears.
That strange look intensified for a moment, before disappearing. He shook his head but left it at that. "It's about time for supper. Tena and Lina should be there, and I for one am starving."
-
Tena was there, but Lina was not. I assumed she had already eaten or would appear soon enough.
My mood was made better by the other face at our table, though not much of his face was visible. Flette was sitting there, he appeared to have fallen asleep with his head resting beside a mostly full plate.
We all ate in silence, letting him rest rather than wake him. But of course, we had to wake him after we finished eating. We couldn't leave him at the table when his bed would be a better place to rest.
I shook his shoulder lightly before moving to the side, just in time to avoid a dagger I knew he kept with him at all times. He blinked tiredly, before putting the dagger down and frowning at me. "You were in a fight. Maybe six days ago by the stage of healing?"
I sighed, he always knew when one of us was injured. "Yes, a run-in with bandits. Lina and I dealt with it but still have a few bumps, and you were off by a day, five, not six."
His frown turned into a full scowl. "Bandits? Can neither of you avoid trouble? It's miraculous, the two of you could stay in bed all day and still have to fight off intruders who happened to spot you once a year before."
I smiled at him but didn't protest. "You can be a worrywart tomorrow, but for now you need to rest."
He opened his mouth as though to protest but before he could say anything, Marc stood and grabbed him by the arm. He dragged Flette towards the exit to the left of the room, and towards their shared dorm room.
I turned to Tena and said, "You should probably go to bed as well. I'm exhausted and I got in last night, you and Flette got here today."
As though proving my point, he yawned. I shooed him towards his own room, before returning to mine.
When I entered, I did a double-take. Had I gone to the wrong room? But no, Lina's rug was there. The room was spotless. I hadn't ever considered myself messy, but the floors seemed to be a shade lighter than I had ever seen them.
The walls were not the dull reddish color I had grown used to but seemed to be a shade of crimson, which made the silver protection spell shimmer brighter in contrast.
Had there really been so much grime in the room? Even my writing desk seemed cleaner and far more organized.
I shook my head, marveling at the change. Nanya sat on a small cot in the left corner closest to the door, looking down at a book. "Well, I was mistaken about this room being dull in nature. How did you get the walls so clean?"
Nanya looked up from her book, a small smile touching her lips. "Soap and water, as well as a borrowed step ladder. You would have learned cleaning techniques for mistreated walls if only you paid attention to Lady Citrine."
I winced, Lady Citrine taught at the school for young ladies in my hometown. I had gotten more than a few lectures, and plenty of irritated skin from her. I was forever getting into trouble for coming in covered with horsehair and not in the least tidy of hair.
Nanya only laughed quietly at my expression. She had never gotten hit with a wooden switch for anything I knew of. "Well, it is true. But you wouldn't be you if you hadn't been so troublesome. I shiver to imagine you riding sidesaddle."
I scowled, but the effect was ruined when I failed to prevent a snort of laughter in time.
I was about to sit at the writing desk when Nanya grabbed my arm, "I just cleaned that, and don't intend to clean it any more than need be. If you wouldn't mind I recommend taking a bath, you are covered in dirt, dried mud, and spirits know what else." I looked down at myself, there wasn't that much mud on me.
But then I tried to think as an outside viewer and left for the baths with a spare tunic and pair of clean breeches.
In the first months of training at the academy, I had been too exhausted to mind the grime, and I supposed I had grown used to it.
I washed thoroughly, scrubbing any remaining dirt from my skin, and washing my hair twice. The baths were kept heated in colder weather, but it was nearing summer so I had no such luxury. The women's bathing pool was always empty when I arrived. This had confused me until I realized how few female students there were. It was me, Lina, and supposedly someone else who I had never so much as laid eyes on.
-
I returned to the room clean and wearing clean clothes. I had braided my hair, but Nanya decided my leather hair strap was unsuitable, and only left me alone when I swapped it for a ribbon.
After I managed to escape Nanya for the night, I turned to my writing desk. There were several small packages there, all bound simply with twine.
I glanced over to see similar packages on Lina's desk, but the girl herself was absent. "Nanya, where do you suppose Lina is?"
She didn't even look up from her book. "Said she was going to the infirmary to ask about the woman you saw this morning, who she thought was peculiar in some manner."
I shook my head, this was precisely the type of thing that had gotten her in trouble so many times. I decided to leave her to her fate and go to bed, and we could look at the packages in the morning.
My plan to sleep through the night was interrupted by the loud whispers of two girls. It was apparent that Lina had returned.
When turning over did nothing to block out the noise, I threw my pillow at them. "What are the two of you doing? It's clearly late, and I was asleep." I had been dreaming too, that strange dream that I could never remember after waking.
I expected at least Nanya to feel some sympathy for my tired bones, but neither she nor Lina seemed to notice my annoyance. Lina was practically bouncing where she sat, "She doesn't work here." She said, as though that explained everything. "The woman you spoke with. She doesn't work here. No one matches the description you gave me, so she was here in a disguise."
I frowned, trying to wake my mind, "But how could she get in? You told me the marks on the walls are protection, are they just for show?"
Nanya looked confused. "What marks on the walls?"
I looked at her for a moment and then replied. "The silver marks on the wall. The ones that seem to shift as you look at them." She still looked confused.
Lina interjected, "they aren't physical, Audrey and I can see them but even most students can't. They are powerful though, and in theory, shouldn't let anyone in unless they have been invited by students or faculty."
I was a little confused, the protections had always looked physical enough to me. I shook it off, trying to focus on the conversation. "Why did she come in anyway? If she doesn't work here. And how did she know where that cream was?"
Lina hesitated, "Well, the shelves are labeled. And as far as what she was doing, I heard someone mention that the headhealer's desk was all messed up, as though someone had been searching through it without caution.
I remembered something then, "She was at a desk when I entered, and jumped when I called her attention to me."
Lina nodded, while Nanya walked around the room straightening various objects. I had learned long ago that that was how she thought.
The discussion began to wind down after that, I was still half asleep and Nanya was reaching the same state. Lina looked wide awake but she needed sleep too, and I eventually managed to convince her to go to sleep. And finally drifted back into the strange dream.
The figure shifted constantly, which hurt my head slightly. It was speaking but I could only make out some of what it said. It asked about my purpose, I didn't know what it meant. It asked about my heart, which was yet stranger.
Of course, when I awoke I had no memory of the dream, and instead focused on the unexplained headache I had.
I went to breakfast and was happy to see almost all of our group, but I could barely focus on them, I felt like something was missing. As though a piece of myself was absent.