Chapter 1: Unusual

Thirteen-year-old Keladry of Mindelan kept her face Yamani-impassive as everyone in the courtyard gave her a very wide berth. It wasn't entirely unjustified. Peachblossom still had a predilection for biting most people that weren't her. She hid the nerves, but they were certainly present. Peachblossom needed her—he was only a colt, after all—but she imagined most new students of magecraft didn't show up to the royal university with an adopted young hurrok whose mother their family had killed in self-defense. After the all-too-recent attacks on the royal nursery, hurroks were not looked upon well.

At least Peachblossom wasn't a Stormwing.

Harailt of Aili, dean of the royal university, came into the courtyard, accompanied by a young woman with smoky brown curls and blue eyes. "Greetings, Baron Piers, and you also, Keladry," Harailt said, and eyed Peachblossom with a mix of wariness and unabashed curiosity. "So this is the hurrok you wrote me about?"

"Yes, my lord," Kel replied. "His name is Peachblossom." Harailt's eyebrows went up, and Kel hastened to add, "My six-year-old niece named him."

The young woman, who had several feathers stuck in her hair, smiled at Kel and Peachblossom. "Hello, all of you. I'm Daine. Harailt asked me to come and talk with your friend here."

This must be the Wildmage, Kel realized. "Thank you," she managed.

"I imagine he's a handful," Daine said with a twinkle in her eye. "He's barely old enough for me to talk to him." She held out her hand to Peachblossom, who sniffed it with interest. Kel prayed for no biting. This was not the time, though the young hurrok had never paid much attention to the right time for anything.

Daine examined Peachblossom's mouth, hooves, coat, eyes, and wings, the last of which were still not strong enough to lift him in flight. All the while, Peachblossom seemed to be listening, and growing more relaxed at every moment. After several minutes of examination, Daine said, "Well, he's certainly latched onto you now."

"Is that bad?" Kel said, trying to keep the worry off her face.

"You're about to become a mage student, Keladry," Harailt said. "You'll be in classes for most of the day. It won't be easy for you to look after a young creature, much less one who could grow up to attack humans."

Kel turned to Daine. "Can you ask him if he has family? His mother was all alone when she attacked our fief, and he was all alone when I found him. He was making these wailing sounds; he was so hungry."

"He says he's been alone since he was born, except for his mother. If he has family, he doesn't know who they are." Daine's brow twisted. "He might go with me for a while, but he'll probably need more attention than I can give. What food have you been giving him?"

"We tried to get one of the mares to nurse him, but she wouldn't let him anywhere near her, so I fed him milk at first," Kel said. For two months, she hadn't ventured far from the stables—Peachblossom had wanted food every hour, at least, and few other humans were willing to get close to him. "But then the hostler who was helping me thought he'd grown enough to have been weaned. So we gave him horse feed and apples and such, but he kept trying to get at meat. He stole a chicken once, and some sausages from our kitchen."

Daine nodded. "Hurroks are omnivores. That's why they have the fangs and back teeth both, just like two-leggers. You've been doing a good job with him otherwise, though. Usually I think a hurrok who lost his mother and flock this early would either starve, or just be ferocious even towards other hurroks."

"And you think he won't be ferocious now?" Harailt said doubtfully. "We can't keep dangerous animals around."

"Numair keeps dangerous experiments in his rooms," Daine said, looking amused. "So do you and the other teachers, except maybe the healers. And most warriors in this palace keep riding horses that could kick their skulls in. Peachblossom's no more dangerous than them, for all he's an immortal." She turned to Kel again. "He needs attention, though, and he'll need it from you at least some of the time, unless you want to put him through the trauma of losing two mothers."

"Kel is thirteen years old," Baron Piers said. "She's responsible, but she's not ready to be anyone's mother."

"But she's owed the truth about the consequences for Peachblossom if she just drops him," Daine replied. "I was a dragon's mother by the time I was fourteen. And Peachblossom will likely never be stable all the way if he loses her now."

"I'm going to help him," Kel said firmly. "I'll do whatever I have to do. Would it be alright if I came to see him whenever I could?"

"You're going to be busy, Kel," Baron Piers said. "Mistress Daine, is it really good for Peachblossom to be so dependent on her? Can't you talk to him?"

Daine gave a half-smile. "Do you think talking to a six-year-old human who's scared to lose their mother would change them? It's the same thing here. But I have an idea. Come with me."

Kel led Peachblossom after Daine, and Piers and Harailt followed. "He's young yet, you should know," Daine said. "Hurroks grow faster than two-leggers, but not as fast as horses. It'll be years before he's full-grown. And he's not wild; he'll probably never be wild. He's spent too much time being raised by a human."

"You mean he can't ever live with other hurroks?" Kel said, dismayed. "I didn't mean for that to happen."

Daine squeezed her shoulder. "If you hadn't adopted him, he wouldn't be alive. You did the best anyone could have." She led the way into an emptier part of the stables, and the others followed.

A girl about Kel's age, with curly black hair in a braid, was mucking out stalls. She was brown-skinned, though clearly not Yamani or Bazhir. She came out of the stall with a cheerful smile. "So here's the monster." She addressed Peachblossom. "You need to work on being scary, or you won't live up to the reputation you've already gotten." Before Kel could stop her, she offered Peachblossom a hand.

Peachblossom sniffed, and sniffed again, plainly curious. "He says he can be scary if he wants," the girl said with a laugh. "I told him I was grateful he didn't want to scare me, because I run away whenever something big falls off a table." Kel couldn't help but smile.

"Keladry, Baron Piers, this is Luzari Legann," Daine said. "She's my apprentice and helper."

Luzari still smiled, but now her eyes looked a little wary. Kel expected that her last name, indicating she was the bastard of somebody from the Legann fief, didn't tend to earn her favors from most nobility. Add to that her being brown-skinned, which meant her mother might have been foreign—Kel knew from her own experience that being foreign, that being different, meant hostility from many. And Kel in the Yamani Islands had been an ambassador's daughter and at least mostly protected from actual violence.

"I'm glad to meet you, Mistress Luzari," she said. "Do you have wild magic too, then?"

"I prefer to call it a talent with animals," Luzari said, some of the wariness leaving her face. "A very big talent, and I'm best with canines and rats. But yes, technically I have wild magic."

"Technically." Daine snorted. "Keladry, if you're still able to spend time with Peachblossom, then Luzari and I together might be able to raise him for the rest of it."

And Kel knew what would happen if they couldn't. The Crown would never allow a hurrok with no fear of humans and a predilection for eating in human settlements to just be let loose in the wild. They would have Peachblossom killed first, before allowing him to do harm to Tortall's people. It was logical, but Kel still couldn't bear the idea. However, caring for Peachblossom all by herself would mean giving up her place at the royal university, and…

Kel thought of her mother, warding off pirates with her Gift. She thought of her Yamani masters, teaching her how to make charms that would protect the young ladies of the court from men trying to attack them. She thought of the summer she'd just spent at Mindelan, when she'd tried to rescue kittens from a spidren and become painfully aware that she didn't know enough to be of use if real danger came calling.

If she wanted to protect people as she dreamed of doing, she needed to learn to use more of Gift than she yet could. She couldn't do that and be a full-time guardian to Peachblossom too. Daine and Luzari were her best hope.

"Any help you can give would be a blessing," Kel said. "And I'll do everything I can too."

"We won't let you down, Lady Keladry," Luzari said. "I've gotten bitten by fanged creatures plenty of times just by being stupid. I don't mind it for a good cause. At least Peachblossom here isn't a cobra."

Kel decided this girl was friendly enough to take a chance on. "You don't have to call me Lady Keladry. I'm just Kel."

"Kel, then," Luzari said. "Let's go find him a spot where nobody will scream when they see him."

~*~*~

A few hours later, Kel was in her room, having said a temporary goodbye to Peachblossom, bid farewell to her father, and met the brisk Salma, who oversaw the hallways in the royal palace where the young mage students stayed. The room was small, and much of was taken up by a large and very sturdy table, which Kel suspected would be necessary for the magical work they did outside of class. Mage students were notorious for loud noises and unpleasant smells as they learned to master new spells, and thus libraries were not the best of places for learning practical magic.

Knowing from experience that learning new spells could also break anything delicate in the room such as porcelain, Kel had left most of her collection of Yamani lucky cats at home, only taking the three made of lacquered wood and the two made of enameled brass. She set them on the bookshelf by her bed and began adding her books.

She hoped that what she had learned from her teachers at the Yamani court would be enough for this university program. It was a new program of study for Tortall, meant to qualify its students to earn the same kinds of robes given in the royal university of Carthak, and one of King Jonathan's steps towards building a university of the same stature and effectiveness as the Carthaki one. It was one of the rare initiatives of his rule to draw almost equal support from conservatives and progressives—the conservatives because they were eager to have Tortall on equal footing with all foreign powers, and the progressives because they supported the kind of education that could lift up even those not born with wealth, noble rank, or a particular sex.

Kel put the last of her books on the shelf and began putting her clothes in the drawers. Breeches were more practical and Kel preferred them, so she had brought some of those, but she didn't know whether it would appall the university's masters or her fellow students if she wore them. Best to at least learn the rules before she broke them, so she'd brought gowns as well.

Of course, she wasn't sure how many invisible rules she was breaking simply by being here. The Crown and the university had agreed that the first cohort to enter this program would be nobility only. Kel imagined they'd hoped this would cut down on the fights in the program's early stages. Instead, the fight had simply shifted, with the conservatives trying to insist that nobility only included old nobility, Tortallan nobility, and nobility with no treason in their families.

Kel bit her lip, allowing her Yamani mask to drop in the privacy of her room. Her family had been fully nobility for one generation only. Her mother was from Seabeth and Seajen, but her father's parents were merchants and he'd been made a baron to give him power as an ambassador. Her older brothers had endured plenty while becoming knights because of that.

Well, there was no point in fussing. She wasn't going to turn tail and run no matter what, and she didn't even know if the students in her cohort who were old nobility would feel the way their parents did. Firmly keeping these notions in mind, Kel changed out of her travel-stained breeches and shirt and into a clean gown, and decided to go to the room where Harailt had told her they would meet for introductions.

She got lost once, but with the help of a servant found the door. Her Yamani mask firmly in place, Kel stepped into the room.

There were three people already there, all seated around a large round table that took up much of the space. One was a boy of about twelve, very pale, with brown-black hair and a pair of crooked spectacles, his face almost entirely hidden behind a book, with a look as if he wanted nothing more than to be left alone.

The other two students were seated next to one another and engaged in some kind of debate. One was a boy of perhaps fifteen, also white-skinned with brown hair sweeping up into a widow's peak and green eyes. The other was a girl who looked about thirteen, with straight black hair done in an elaborate braided style and skin a light coppery brown. She was waving a book around as if she'd like to throw it out a window. "I don't know how you can say this is an effective history of the Copper Isles! I've read it and it's not!"

"The bias is less extreme than in most histories of the Copper Isles," the boy argued. "The book by Winna of Tirragen doesn't even acknowledge the key battles that the raka won, or talk about the background of the invaders. This book at least does that."

"Just because Winna of Tirragen's history is biased doesn't make this book any good," the girl said, shaking the aforesaid book like a bad puppy. "It just shows that you Tortallans don't know anything about the Copper Isles."

Kel almost asked where the girl was from, since she didn't seem to count herself as Tortallan, but stopped herself. If the girl had been in Tortall for very long, she probably got that question all the time and was sick of it, and sick of people judging her by the answer. "Do you know a good history of the Copper Isles?" she said instead. "Maybe one written by somebody from there?"

The girl's eyes snapped to Kel. "Yes. It's been outlawed by the Copper Isles king, though, may he rot under harbor water. Most of the printed copies were burned."

"Burned?" the green-eyed boy said, his face going from argumentative to serious. "That's horrible. Only tyrants burn books. Queen Inota of Maren did it, and so did the duke of the province of Besim in Carthak. And their reigns included genocides."

Kel frowned. She'd spoken Common with her family at home while in the Yamani Islands, but that word hadn't come up. "What are genocides? I mostly speak Yamani; I don't think I know…"

"A genocide is where a lot of people are murdered because of their race or religion," the girl said tightly. "Queen Inota encouraged her subjects to kill any Scanrans in Maren. The duke of Besim had his soldiers murder anyone who followed reptile gods."

Yes, Kel knew about that. There were stories told in the Yamani Islands about how—in less enlightened days, people were always quick to say—a group of people had started worshipping only the Wave Walker and rejecting the fire goddess Yama. Most of them had been murdered, and the last few forced back into worshipping Yama. People always declared that now, such things would never happen, that there would be peaceful ways for the Wave Walker worshippers to find the true path again, but Kel had never been sure. The first time she'd heard the story, she'd thrown up. "I've heard of that. It makes me sick."

"It should," the green-eyed boy said. "Zuliza, why did the Copper Isles king burn those books?"

The girl—Zuliza, apparently—stared at the floor. "Because they told the truth about what happened during the invasion. What's still happening now, at home. The author of the book wanted to send copies out of the Isles so other countries wouldn't give so much support to the rulers. She didn't know if it would work, but she wanted to try."

"I want to read it," the green-eyed boy said decidedly. "If you have a copy. Or can get one."

Zuliza looked between him and Kel as if evaluating them. Then she said, "I have a few copies, and you can borrow one. But you have to be careful, alright? It would be really hard for me to replace them."

"I'm always careful with books," the green-eyed boy said. "My sister once drooled on one of my books on anatomy. I'd have been horribly angry, but she was four, so…"

"If she was four, what was she doing with your book on anatomy?" Kel asked. She had four-year-old children in her life, and knew exactly how likely they were to be interested in such things.

"She wouldn't stop asking me what a heart looked like. I showed her, but she didn't believe me. She said hearts weren't red; they were green."

Zuliza raised her eyebrows. "Where did she get that idea?"

"Goddess, I don't know. I decided to show her that hearts were red—all in the spirit of medical exploration, you know—so the next time we were going to have roast pheasant for dinner, we dissected the pheasant, but when we found the heart, she said it wasn't the heart, it couldn't be the heart, because hearts were green. And she dug around looking for it until the pheasant was in pieces and we had to have pheasant stew instead."

Kel looked at Zuliza, whose mouth was trembling with mirth. She knew her Yamani mask was slipping, showing her own hilarity. "An ideal brother," Zuliza said. "Sacrificing roast pheasant for anatomy lessons. Did the rest of your family complain?"

The green-eyed boy looked away, his face sliding from excited to blank. "Only a little," he said, his voice quiet. "They were used to us doing that kind of thing."

"Did I offend you?" Zuliza looked concerned. "I didn't mean to."

"No," the green-eyed boy said, his voice still quiet. "You didn't."

The door opened again, and in strode Harailt plus four other students, all of them somewhere between twelve and fifteen years old. "Take a seat, all of you," Harailt said. "I've got a few things to say to you, and then we can go to supper."

Kel sat by Zuliza, who had the green-eyed boy on her other side. A very short girl of about twelve with warm brown eyes and golden hair sat on Kel's other side, giving her a shy smile in greeting. The others distributed themselves around the table, and Harailt took the last spot. "Welcome. Let's introduce ourselves. But before we do, you should know that here at the university, what matters is your experience with magic. We are not dull enough to pretend that you won't evaluate each other based on your families. But you are all students, all equals to each other. We will treat you as such, and we expect you to treat each other as such. Nothing less will be tolerated."

A couple of people shifted, but Kel, looking at Harailt, didn't catch who they were. He continued. "We also expect you to treat your teachers with respect. Some are nobility, and some are not. Some are Tortallan from birth, and some are not. Regardless, they are all giving of their time and energy to teach you what you need to know, and they are thus due your respect. If you are ever tempted to be rude to them, remember that they are your path to doing what you want with the Gift, and to serving your country."

None of this was unfamiliar to Kel—her Yamani teachers had said similar things—but she was relieved to hear, all the same, that their cohort was expected to regard one another as equals. At least she wouldn't be swimming upriver in terms of gaining their respect, and in demanding respect for others. She hoped.

"Now, introductions. You all know me, I am Master Harailt of Aili." Kel noticed he used Master instead of his title of Lord, and decided that was probably the right way to address her teachers. He pointed at the boy to his right, who looked about twelve and had black hair and blue eyes. "Please begin."

The black-haired, blue-eyed boy was Jehu of Fenrigh, and he muttered his name as if he wanted nothing more than to vanish. The girl of about fifteen, to his right, had long bright red hair and a rosy complexion, and by contrast delivered her name—Amira of King's Reach—in a confident voice. On her other side was the boy with crooked spectacles that Kel had seen reading earlier, and he sounded wary as he pronounced himself Tress of Sinthya.

Next was the short, golden-haired, warm-brown-eyed girl next to Kel, who sounded a little shy when she introduced herself as Rakida of Genlith. Kel kept her Yamani mask in place as she told the circle she was Keladry of Mindelan. Zuliza sat up straight and sounded almost defiant when she stated her name—Zuliza Fonfala. Kel had never heard that name, but knew she must be nobility per the rule about this cohort, and wondered if she was Copper Isles nobility.

It was then the green-eyed boy's turn, and when he told them he was Nealan of Queenscove, Zuliza choked and started coughing. "Are you alright?" Harailt inquired.

Zuliza ignored the question, turning to Nealan. "Your ancestor wrote that book we were just arguing about! Why didn't you say?"

"Because I wanted your unbiased opinion about the book," Nealan said with a grin. "And I must say, I got it."

"You don't care that I just criticized a Queenscove scholar's work?" Zuliza demanded.

"Truth is worth a little criticism," Nealan said. "I want to know the truth, even if my ancestor didn't." He looked at the rest of the room. "All of you, please call me Neal. If you call me Nealan, you will remind me of my aunt when she's angry with me and then none of us will be happy."

"Done," Harailt said, looking enormously amused over the exchange. "And our last student here?"

The last student, who had black hair, grey eyes, and a scar on his cheek, and looked perhaps fourteen, was Bekat of Nond. "You'll all get to know each other very well in the next few years, and I hope you learn to cooperate," Harailt said. "Soon, you will be learning magic that is likely new to you and almost certainly more challenging than anything you have encountered before, no matter how good your teachers have been. The most important recommendation I have for you is to ask questions—yes, when you don't know something, but even when you think you do. Always go deeper. To be absolutely sure of something will make you stop learning, and you are here to learn. Now, let's go to supper."

Kel focused on their route to the meals hall so she could be sure of finding it again next time. Once they arrived, Harailt went off to get food. Kel looked for a teacher's table and didn't see one.

"Don't the teachers sit together?" Rakida of Genlith asked, looking confused.

"Not here," Neal said. "Or at least, there's not a teachers' table. They want to encourage students to talk to the teachers outside classes, in case they need help or are curious about something. My father was always getting rushed during meals by some healer terrified of failing a patient."

"Your father teaches here?" Jehu of Fenrigh said.

"Yes, but he won't be teaching us. Only specialized healers."

"I'm getting food before it gets cold," Bekat of Nond announced, and headed towards the tables where the food was laid out. Most of the others headed after him.

Kel, noticing Zuliza falling behind, joined her. To blatantly inquire after others' feelings was rude in the Yamani Islands, unless you knew the person quite well. But Zuliza looked unhappy and Kel didn't want to just leave her alone. "Shall we sit together?" she suggested.

"You'd do better to sit with Jehu," Zuliza said abruptly.

"What? Why him?"

"He's the only new nobility of this lot besides you, since he's from Fenrigh. And he won't want to sit with me and make his life any harder than it's already going to be."

"Who will you sit with, then?" Kel asked, carefully keeping her voice calm.

"I'll go eat in my room." Zuliza shrugged in a way that didn't fool Kel at all. "That's mostly what I've been doing since I got here."

"Do they bother you, then? The others here?"

Zuliza snorted. "Ever been the outcast in a group of mage students? I learned my first two days here that if I wanted to keep my food edible or my clothes on my body, I'd better stay away from just about everybody. Even the ones who don't play tricks don't stand up for me either."

"Then I'll come with you," Kel said, hiding the hot indignation that jabbed at her. "You can show me that Copper Isles book you were talking about."

"You don't—" Zuliza looked astonished. "You don't have to wreck your reputation here for me. You don't even know me."

"I don't need to know you," Kel said. "I hate it when people pick on other people."

Zuliza put her hands on her hips. "Don't play the hero for me."

"I'm not a hero," Kel said, startled. "It's not heroic to be on your side here. It's just what I should be doing. What everyone should be doing. If anyone's a hero, it's you, for coming to be a student here when you probably knew people would bother you, for trying to learn magic anyway." She stopped, feeling awkward. "Anyway, if you really want to be alone, that's fine, but I'd like to help, if I can."

After a moment of eying her suspiciously, Zuliza said, "Alright. I suppose if you're just trying to play another trick on me, I'll find it out sooner or later. Let's get food." She marched over to the table with the food. Kel followed.

They were just about to turn a corner in the hall when they heard footsteps behind them. Turning, Kel saw Neal with a plate in hand. "Where are you going?" he demanded. "I wanted to ask you about raka magic."

Zuliza raised an eyebrow. "And what makes you think I know about raka magic?"

"Aren't you…" Neal trailed off.

"Raka? I'm actually half-raka; the Fonfala family are luarin. My father married a raka noblewoman."

"What's raka?" Kel asked, confused. "And—luarin?"

"Raka are the people native to the Copper Isles," Zuliza said. "They have brown skin. Luarin are the invaders, the white-skinned people." She turned to Neal. "And by the way? There's no one kind of raka magic. There are as many kinds of raka magic as there are kinds of luarin magic. Now, if you mean the kind of magic the raka evolved under the rule of the luarin to be hidden from sight, you should just say that, not raka magic."

Neal blinked, then looked highly chagrined. "You're right. I'm sorry. I'll remember for next time."

Zuliza looked from Neal to Kel. "You two are strange."

"What's Keladry done?" Neal inquired.

"Insisted on coming with me to eat supper in my room," Zuliza said, rolling her eyes as if this was a huge inconvenience. Kel wasn't hurt. She was fairly sure that if Zuliza really didn't want her there, she'd have said so. And if Kel had been the one harassed for days or however long Zuliza had been here, she might want to keep a potential friend at arms' length for a bit too.

Neal looked at the meals hall from where he'd come. "They're bothering you," he stated, clearly not needing an answer. "Did you tell one of the masters?"

"Yes, and he gave my oh-so-kind fellow students a lecture on how we were all equals and made them promise to stop," Zuliza said, her voice tight again. "They were back at it the next evening. If I keep telling on them, people will start to call me the troublemaker."

"Then I suppose I'll just have to come with you two," Neal pronounced. "I want to hear about the hidden magic, and my father said that you—" he addressed Kel "—lived in the Yamani court. None of the books I've read answer all my questions about that Yamani trickster god, and I want to know about him."

"Sakuyo? Just don't compare his powers with the Graveyard Hag's," Kel said. "They say if you do that, the first army barracks you walk into will collapse and kill everyone inside it."

"Noted," Neal said. "And there you are, that's one thing I know now that I didn't know before."

"This is ridiculous." Zuliza started off down the hall, with Kel and Neal behind her. "You two, not the Yamani trickster god."

They got back to the hall with their rooms, balancing their plates of food. Zuliza opened the door, stepped inside, and let out a frustrated wail. "Not again!"

Kel peered around her and saw that the room was a mess—bed overturned and blankets strewn everywhere, shutters hanging open, the bookshelf empty and its contents all over the floor. The table, which was identical to the one in Kel's room, was standing, but Kel could see the spells keeping it upright and guessed they were the only reason it still was so. All over the walls were written runes in Old Thak. Runes for unclean. Runes for freak. Runes for half-breed.

Zuliza set her plate on the table with a clack and ran to the corner where the bed had been. There was nothing there, and for a moment, Kel was confused. Then she realized the corner only appeared to be empty. Some illusion lay over it, but she couldn't tell what it was hiding.

After examining the corner for a few seconds, Zuliza appeared to relax—whatever she was hiding, it was safe. Then she turned on Kel and Neal, looking defiant again. "Please leave me alone." Kel hesitated, torn between knowing that she also would rather have privacy if she was going to break down and cry, and the desire to help in such a situation.

"I'm going to get Salma," Neal said, setting his own plate of food down on the table. "Even if you don't want us around, she can help you clean up." He hurried off down the hall.

"You don't have to—" Zuliza began, then sighed as Neal disappeared. She looked at her feet. "There's not much point in cleaning up, is there? When they'll just wreck it again." 

"Have you tried a warding spell?" Kel asked cautiously. "To keep them out?"

"That was the first thing I did!" Zuliza snapped. "Do you think I'm stupid? They've been combining their magic to break everything I try!" 

Kel shook herself. Of course Zuliza had tried warding her room; any mage with the least bit of intelligence would have. "I'm sorry. I should have realized you would have already tried that."

"Yes, you should have." Zuliza scowled at the floor, blinking back tears.

Even Kel's Yamani side couldn't blame Zuliza for crying under such circumstances, especially if this had happened before. She looked at the runes on the wall, hiding her anger, and set her own food down. "I wouldn't be able to get those runes off on my own," she said levelly. "If you can't either, maybe we can work together and do it."

"I probably can't," Zuliza admitted. "I think they worked together on those too." She wiped a few tears off her face. "Will you—really help me? I've been here a week and nobody…you and Neal both arrived today and this is the most I've talked since I got here."

"Of course I'll help you," Kel said. "Just a basic erasure spell will do, I think. My teachers always used to say, never complicate what doesn't need to be complicated."

"My teachers always said, simple is beautiful." Zuliza's mouth twitched. "Seems like they agree. If you'll strengthen me, I'll do it."

With their combined magic—Kel's a bright aqua and Zuliza's a glittering yellow—they were able to remove two of the runes before they heard footsteps in the hallway and a knock on the door. "It's Salma and me!" Neal called. "And somebody else who can help you!"

"Come in!" Zuliza called, halting the spell that would have removed the third rune.

The door opened and in came Neal and Salma, along with a shockingly tall man with black hair tied back and strangely magnetic eyes. He looked at the mess and the one remaining rune, and his face went grim, as did Salma's. "We'll get this cleaned up," Salma said. "Go eat your supper. I'll have it good as new by the time you come back."

"Master Numair," Neal said, "if Zuliza agrees, could you put some wards on her door and windows? To keep this from happening again, you know." Kel blinked, staring at the most powerful sorcerer in Tortall.

Zuliza looked similarly surprised. "Could you—could you do that?"

"Yes, I can," Numair said, observing the mess, and gestured at the remaining rune. In a brief flash of glittering black Gift, it disappeared. "Moreover, I will. There's really no excuse for being that unkind."

Salma gestured at their food on the table. "That's getting cold. Take it and get out of the way while we do what we need to do."

"We can go to my room," Kel suggested. "Neal, if you really want to learn about the Yamanis, you can see my collection of lucky cats."

The moment the three students were out of the room, Zuliza demanded, "Why is he helping me, Neal? Master Numair, I mean."

Neal shrugged. "Maybe because he was new to Tortall once too—he's Tyran, and he came here as a refugee from Carthak. Or maybe he's just a decent person. Keladry, I assume your lucky cats aren't real cats, so you'll have to explain."

Kel eyed them. Zuliza was certainly prickly, and Neal was excessively academic, and yet something about both of them called to her. The way Zuliza defended her point of view, and the way Neal had apologized for his mistake—it was unusual, and it was worthwhile. "You can call me Kel, both of you. And no, Neal, the lucky cats aren't real cats. I'll show you."

Commentary on Chapter 1

This is not necessary to follow the story, but will offer further insight if you want it.

I'm an imperfect-but-flaming radical dedicated to equity who's gotten in trouble for calling out microaggressions and has no regrets about it, and thus I love Keladry of Mindelan. On a reread a while ago, I got to wondering idly what Kel would be like as a Gifted mage. Not a combination mage-warrior, since we already read about that in Song of the Lioness, but a dedicated user of the Gift. We've seen some of what a mage's training is like in Carthak in Tempests and Slaughter, but I was free to speculate about Tortall, and before I knew it, I was writing scenes with Kel as a mage student at the royal university.

As I did, I had an interesting realization. The Gift, as far as we know, occurs equally in people of all sexes, and manifests the same way. It would be vastly stupid of Tortall not to train female mages. (It was vastly stupid of them not to train female warriors, but with the Gift, they wouldn't even have the excuse of "women are weaker physically," which is a silly excuse too.) But back to mages. We don't really know how much sex/gender discrimination there is in the royal university, so I was free to declare there wasn't much at all. However…

This university program Kel has joined is intended to raise up a generation of powerful mages such as Tortall has never formally trained before. Who gets to be trained this way in Tortall is subject to much debate. Bringing in new nobility for a program like this makes the conservatives cross, and bringing in foreign nobility from a country with which Tortall just had a war makes everyone cross.

On top of that, to formally train these students, the current royals need mages familiar with more advanced curricula. So Kel's teachers (whom you will soon meet) are a mix of immigrants educated in Carthak and old Tortallan nobility who haven't all figured out how to share their power with their new colleagues. So although the university is not a sexist mess like knight training, it's a xenophobic kettle about to boil and blow the lid off.

Also, there will be lots of cool magic. Because Alanna's story focused more on her as a warrior, and because Numair in the Immortals series didn't narrate, we haven't seen the breadth and depth of what a mage in Tortall can do and what it feels like for them to do it. I want to explore that.

Don't expect to see a copy of Tempests and Slaughter here. I liked that book, but it wouldn't make sense for Tortall to wholesale pluck Carthaki mage training and replicate it. They're two very different countries and cultures, after all—and besides, I wanted to make up my own shit.

Kel is thirteen when she starts mage training because the training I've concocted for these students is meant for slightly more experienced folks. Page training starts at ten because the more time to condition the body, the better, but for intellectual work, you have to lay the groundwork—you'll see later that all the students have had some experience in magic already, with other teachers. But it's not that the story starts two years later—it's still 452 H.E., just like in the original First Test. Kel was just born two years earlier.

I was like, "Okay, Peachblossom has to be in this story, but he's obviously not a warhorse…what would a mage ride/domesticate?" The answer of hurrok jumped into my brain and I ran with it. We see a couple of antagonists forcing hurroks to carry them in Wolf-Speaker, so we know it can technically be done, though Kel clearly has a much more positive relationship with Peachblossom than those other jerks had with the hurroks they were riding. Kel won't be riding Peachblossom for a while, though—as I've learned from a friend who raises horses, putting that kind of weight on a foal is really bad for them.

Oh, yeah, and I did consider making Peachblossom a Stormwing. Kel is fortunate that I discarded that idea, which I did because Stormwings have equal-to-human intelligence from the start and would need very dedicated care, like a human toddler. Hurroks I see as somewhere between horses and humans in terms of intelligence. At least until they hang around with people who have wild magic, in which case…smart as hell.

We know from Bloodhound that bastards of nobility can have last names based on the fief their noble parent claims (in that book, it's Nestor Haryse), at least if they're acknowledged. We don't learn in any book so far when Imrah of Legann got married, so he could plausibly have fathered Luzari before that happened. We don't know a ton about him, but from what we do know, it sounds like he's the kind of guy to acknowledge a bastard child.

Considering we had a whole series dedicated to a protagonist with wild magic, the rules about how you get it and what animals you can interact with aren't as clear as they could be. Daine can do just about anything, but everyone else we meet seems confined to certain species—Onua to horses, for example, and the Banjiku to cats, dogs, and monkeys. Luzari, as I've conceived her, will be almost Daine's equal in power when she has Daine's experience, but is still young and learning—she can interact with any of the People, but has the strongest bond with canines and rats, and she won't learn to shapeshift quite yet (Daine learned at fourteen, and Luzari is thirteen). I have a whole backstory for her, some parts of which you might be able to guess with the information I've already given you.

I transplanted Salma to the royal university, because I love her. Most of the pages (though not all) are still training as pages, and Wyldon is still the training master, and Kel won't meet those folks until later, and in some cases, not at all. I didn't want to recreate an all-male environment for Kel, because that's just the same book again, and Kel deserves the chance to form strong bonds with other girls early on. But I will bring my favorite guys in, either by giving them the Gift and having them show up at the university, or bringing Kel into contact with them when she goes to do martial magic—which she will learn.

Libraries would suck for things blowing up. I feel like this doesn't get acknowledged when we talk about mage universities. I have sensory issues and so do some of my friends…we would hate explosions when we were trying to read. Also, save the lucky cats.

There's almost no sense given in any book what exactly is required in order to earn any color of robe, though that may change when we get the sequel to Tempests and Slaughter. In order of power/training, it seems to be light-colored robes, then yellow robes, then red robes, then black robes (of which there are only seven in the world). So I'm making it all up, which is more fun anyway. I will be more detailed later, but essentially, there's a base power level you need to qualify to earn any robe, which is one way these students were chosen to be part of this program. Then, to earn a robe, you need to study a certain number of subjects to a certain depth. Once you've done that, the color of the robe is determined by how much depth you've gone into in your specialties. (I'm throwing out that thing Numair said in Wolf-Speaker about black robes studying only esoterica and not much else. That doesn't make any sense. Forget it. Black robes are badass and know all kinds of shit nobody else does.)

I do see the conservatives and progressives in Tortall agreeing on expanding the mage university, but as anyone into politics knows, the minute you agree on one thing, five more things pop up where you hate each other's guts.

I've never been clear as to why the mass killings of the raka in the Trickster series were never called genocide, because that's definitely what they were. The word genocide was coined in more modern times, so maybe that's the reason, but I found it important to call the luarin ruling class out—not only those who enacted the genocide, but those who didn't prevent it or made only lukewarm efforts to do so. Laying petitions before a murderous Crown is not enough when huge numbers of people, including kids, are getting slaughtered.

After Kel, Neal is my favorite character in this series, so he's here right from the start. He still has the same feelings about knighthood and losing his brothers as he does in the original, but he chooses not to act on those feelings, and stays at the royal university. We will explore why along the way.

The basic ideology of mage training is obviously fairer than that of page training—in theory. In practice, there is plenty of inequity, bullying, and overlooking of wrongs, just like in most institutions. I could have made the inequity built into the mage training, but what's the point of writing canon all over again, when I could try something else?

These students are not direct parallels of anyone in page training, even when they come from the same fief. I thought about going that route, but honestly, I didn't find many of the pages to be very distinct from each other. Neal and Owen are both very clearly drawn (which is one reason why Neal is here, and why Owen will turn up later), and Cleon and Roald are somewhat more defined than the others. We can tell Joren and Vinson and Zahir from the others, and to some extent from each other.

But I struggle to find real defining features in Merric, Seaver, Esmond, Faleron, Quinden, Garvey, Iden, and Warric. It certainly doesn't keep me from enjoying the books, but it didn't really make sense for me to set up the mage students as direct parallels to the pages—especially since I want us to see some of the pages themselves later on.

Still, all these mage students have links to canon characters in one way or another. Points if you can guess how, but even if you can't, it will be made clear down the line.

It's easily overlooked, but the brief history of the Copper Isles we're given at the beginning of Trickster's Choice was in fact written by Michabur Durse of Queenscove. That was in 312 H.E., over a hundred years ago, meaning Neal would not have known this particular ancestor personally.

Neal's smart, but I can easily see a fifteen-year-old Tortallan mage—no matter how intelligent he is—making that blunder about "raka magic." So it's not unexpected, but it is definitely a microaggression, somewhat akin to asking a Kenyan immigrant to "teach me words in African" or saying to a Brazilian immigrant that they "must know how to tango." The ignorant overgeneralization. Luckily, being both smart and open, Neal will learn quickly. 

In somewhat bitter experience, I have learned that callouts can backfire. Getting a reputation for pointing out injustice does not always end well—it's still worth doing, but there can be social consequences. Zuliza knows this, and is not interested in fighting the whole establishment along with her fellow mages. I certainly don't blame her for this.

Trickster gods will be a thing in this story. More about that later.

Like Neal, Kel is smart—not to mention sensitive—but she's not immune to microaggressions either, especially unconscious ones. Implying that Zuliza has not yet tried warding her room, when Kel knows that Zuliza has the same magic she does, is essentially implying that Zuliza is stupid. Kel would, of course, never do that on purpose, but many if not most microaggressions are unconscious. The vast majority of the sexism in the original Protector of the Small series was overt, but that's not always how bigotry works, and in this story, I wanted to explore characters learning to conquer their unconscious bias as well as fighting against blatant prejudice. They can do it!

Never forget that Numair and Daine are immigrants. (To quote Hamilton: "Immigrants—we get the job done!") What with those two, Zuliza, Luzari, and—later on—Yuki and Shinko and Buri and Thayet, we've got immigrant characters all over the place. I like it that way. I hope you do too.