I knew of no reasonable creature who would not respond to a nonchalant declaration like, “Magic book.” Sera was a complex companion, I knew, but eminently reasonable when such hooks were presented.
Her eyebrow raised accommodatingly, and, for emphasis, she added, “Define magic book.”
I shrugged, stretching. “Oh, you know, just your typical book connected to a nigh-omniscient spiritual entity contained within the Serpent Spire. What are you reading?”
“Hartigan’s Compiled Treatises on Advanced Binding Theory.” She retrieved a bookmark from her bag, set it to mark her progress and closed the tome. “Nothing that would be applicable studies. It’s for Summoners.”
I nodded sagely. “Studying early? Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to interrupt that with something as uninteresting as—”
She uncoiled herself and leaned in closer. “No need to be so blithely manipulative, Corin. You’ve got my attention. Now, what percentage of that was actually true?”
I looked upward, and then tilted my face down, giving an exaggerated look of concentration. “Eighty... no, seventy nine point nine percent?”
She laughed obligingly, grabbing toward the back. “Okay, come on, show me.”
I showed her the book, and she sat a little closer while I went over each of the pages, telling her bits of the story that went along with each.
I stopped just before the prison, after the book told me that, “You shouldn’t have done that.” It was a good place to hook her interest, and beyond that, I was pretty sure I shouldn’t be sharing the incidents with the prison and beyond — and certainly not in public.
I really wanted to tell her about Keras fighting Katashi. The idea that there was a presumably mortal swordsman that could even hold a visage at bay was almost unthinkable. I’d been raised to believe the visages were unstoppable forces of nature. Everyone had.
Was Keras an exception? Was he truly that powerful?
Or was he another visage himself?
Wydd, the Visage of Forbidden Knowledge, was known to take on many forms depending on her current whim. Maybe Keras being another visage was a simpler answer than assuming he was a human with some kind of unknown power source.
But even if it was a simpler answer, I didn’t know if it was a better one. Two visages fighting each other was potentially more worrisome than a human managing to put up a fight. Some kind of in-fighting among our pantheon could not possibly be a good thing — and it probably wasn’t something a mere mortal should know about.
And Katashi knew that I’d seen the fight.
Even if he didn’t take direct action against me, there was a good chance I’d be in danger if I went back to the tower before figuring this situation out. And there was a chance he would do something, even if it wasn’t personally. Every visage had human agents. Priests, servants, that sort of thing.
Just one more thing for me to worry about.
I also wanted to tell Sera about the prison, both out of excitement and because I wanted to get her insight. I liked to plan for every contingency, but Sera had always been great at breaking down a situation into component parts and analyzing them. Maybe she would pick up on hints that I hadn’t, and I needed all the information I could so that I’d be better prepared to rescue Tristan when I was ready to climb the tower.
In spite of my desires, though, I needed to play it safe. The Voice had been clear that I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone else about the situation. It had probably saved my life by giving me a quick way out of the tower, so I owed it at least a bit of consideration. I’d still probably tell Sera eventually, but I wanted to see what this Lyras Orden had to say before I took any further actions.
Instead, I asked her how she would have handled the same tests, and we discussed and debated alternate strategies for each room for hours.
By the end of the trip, we might have almost been friends again.
***
Sera and I stood together on a broad grassy field. We were joined by a mere eight thousand other students, mostly other applicants who had survived a trip through the tower. There would be a few others. Foreign students with other attunements. A scattered few students who hadn’t taken their Judgments yet and were here to prepare.
The sea of teenagers stared at a raised stone platform where several adults in the pristine white uniforms of the Valian military stood. We’d be hearing their commencement speeches shortly.
In the meantime, Sera and I were scanning the crowd, presumably for similar reasons. I was looking for known quantities such as my few friends, or acquaintances from social gatherings. Allies. Enemies. The crowd was thick enough that I had little success.
I thought I caught a glance of Patrick Wayland, one of my childhood friends. That gave me some conflicted feelings. I hadn’t seen Patrick in years.
Would he think less of me for having a weak attunement?
Not everyone treated non-combat attunements as inferior, but it was hardly an uncommon attitude. Valia’s military was our pride, and being able to stand on the front lines and fight with magical power was a common childhood dream.
It had never been my dream, but I’d never been great at fitting society’s expectations in general.
Sera and I were both still wearing our backpacks, and I still had the goddess-given saber on my belt. About one in three of the other students was armed. I’d initially expected my weapon to be taken at the academy gates, but the military had a strong presence on the campus, and the gate guards didn’t seem the least bit bothered by the sword’s presence.
Most of the other students didn’t seem to have backpacks, although I spotted a few in the crowd. Maybe the majority of students had already found their dormitories — Sera and I had just barely arrived in time for the commencement speech.