“Didn’t you live here?” Rin asked.
“Not since the occupation,” Tutor Feyrik grumbled. “It’s easy to lose a language when you never speak it.”
Rin supposed that was fair. She herself found the dialect nearly indecipherable; every word, it seemed, had to be shortened, with a curt r noise added to the end. In Tikany, speech was slow and rolling. The southerners drew out their vowels, rolled their words over their tongues like sweet rice congee. In Sinegard, it seemed no one had time to finish his words.
Even with directions, the city itself was no more navigable than its dialect. Sinegard was the oldest city in the country, and its architecture bore evidence of the multiple shifts in power in Nikan over the centuries. Buildings were either of new construction or were falling into decay, emblems of regimes that had long ago fallen out of power. In the eastern districts stood the spiraling towers of the old Hinterlander invaders from the north. To the west, blocklike compounds stood wedged narrowly next to one another, a holdover from Federation occupation during the Poppy Wars. It was a tableau of a country with many rulers, represented in a single city.
“Do you know where we’re going?” Rin asked after several minutes of walking uphill.
“Only vaguely.” Tutor Feyrik was sweating profusely. “It’s become a labyrinth since I was here. How much money have we got left?”
Rin dug out her coin pouch and counted. “A string and a half of silvers.”
“That should more than cover what we need.” Tutor Feyrik mopped at his brow with his cloak. “Why don’t we treat ourselves to a ride?”
He stepped out onto the dusty street and raised an arm. Almost immediately a rickshaw runner swerved across the road and halted jerkily in front of them.
“Where to?” panted the runner.
“The Academy,” said Tutor Feyrik. He tossed their bags into the back and climbed into the seat. Rin grasped the sides and was about to pull herself in when she heard a sharp cry behind her. Startled, she turned around.
A child lay sprawled in the center of the road. Several paces ahead, a horse-drawn carriage had veered off course.
“You just hit that kid!” Rin screamed. “Hey, stop!”
The driver yanked the horse’s reins. The wagon screeched to a halt. The passenger craned his neck out of the carriage and caught sight of the child feebly stirring in the street.
The child stood up, miraculously alive. Blood trickled down in tiny rivulets from the top of his forehead. He touched two fingers to his head and glanced down, dazed.
The passenger leaned forward and uttered a harsh command to the driver that Rin didn’t understand.
The wagon turned slowly. For an absurd moment Rin thought the driver was going to offer the child a lift. Then she heard the crack of a whip.
The child stumbled and tried to run.
Rin shrieked over the sound of clomping hooves.
Tutor Feyrik reached toward the gaping rickshaw runner and tapped him on the shoulder. “Go. Go!”
The runner sped up, dragged them faster and faster over the rutted streets until the exclamations of bystanders died away behind them.
“The driver was smart,” said Tutor Feyrik as they wobbled over the bumpy road. “You cripple a child, you pay a disabilities fine for their entire life. But if you kill them, you pay the funeral fee once. And that’s only if you’re caught. If you hit someone, better make sure they’re dead.”
Rin clung to the side of the carriage and tried not to vomit.
Sinegard the city was smothering, confusing, and frightening.
But Sinegard Academy was beautiful beyond description.
Their rickshaw driver dropped them at the base of the mountains at the edge of the city. Rin let Tutor Feyrik handle the luggage and ran up to the school gates, breathless.
She’d been imagining for weeks now what it would be like to ascend the steps to the Academy. The entire country knew how Sinegard Academy looked; the school’s likeness was painted on wall scrolls throughout Nikan.
Those scrolls didn’t come close to capturing the campus in reality. A winding stone pathway curved around the mountain, spiraling upward into a complex of pagodas built on successively higher tiers. At the highest tier stood a shrine, on the tower of which perched a stone dragon, the symbol of the Red Emperor. A glimmering waterfall hung like a skein of silk beside the shrine.
The Academy looked like a palace for the gods. This was a place out of legend. This was her home for the next five years.
Rin was speechless.
Rin and Tutor Feyrik were given a tour of the grounds by an older student who introduced himself as Tobi. Tobi was tall, bald-headed, and clad in a black tunic with a red armband. He wore a dedicatedly bored sneer to indicate he would rather have been doing anything else.
They were joined by a slender, attractive woman who initially mistook Tutor Feyrik for a porter and then apologized without embarrassment. Her son was a fine-featured boy who would have been very pretty if he hadn’t had such a resentful expression on his face.
“The Academy is built on the grounds of an old monastery.” Tobi motioned for them to follow him up the stone steps to the first tier. “The temples and praying grounds were converted to classrooms once the Red Emperor united the tribes of Nikan. First-year students have sweeping duty, so you’ll get familiar with the grounds soon enough. Come on, try to keep up.”
Even Tobi’s lack of enthusiasm couldn’t detract from the Academy’s beauty, but he did his best. He walked the stone steps in a rapid, practiced manner, not bothering to check whether his guests were keeping pace. Rin was left behind to help the wheezing Tutor Feyrik up the perilously narrow stairs.
There were seven tiers to the Academy. Each curve of the stone pathway brought into view a new complex of buildings and training grounds, embedded in lush foliage that had clearly been carefully cultivated for centuries. A rushing brook sliced down the mountainside, cleaving the campus neatly in two.
“The library is over there. Mess hall is this way. New students live at the lowest tier. Up there are the masters’ quarters.” Tobi pointed very rapidly to several stone buildings that all looked alike.
“What about that?” Rin asked, pointing to an important-looking building by the brook.
Tobi’s lip curled up. “That’s the outhouse, kid.”
The handsome boy snickered. Cheeks burning, Rin pretended to be very fascinated by the view from the terrace.
“Where are you from, anyway?” Tobi asked in a not-very-friendly tone.
“Rooster Province,” Rin muttered.
“Ah. The south.” Tobi sounded like something made sense to him now. “I guess multistory buildings are a new concept to you, but try not to get too overwhelmed.”
After Rin’s registration papers had been checked and filed, Tutor Feyrik had no reason to stay. They said their goodbyes outside the school gates.
“I understand if you’re scared,” Tutor Feyrik said.
Rin swallowed down the massive lump in her throat and clenched her teeth. Her head buzzed; she knew a dam of tears would break out from under her eyes if she didn’t suppress it.
“I’m not scared,” she insisted.
He smiled gently. “Of course you’re not.”
Her face crumpled, and she rushed forward to embrace him. She buried her face in his tunic so that no one could see her crying. Tutor Feyrik patted her on the shoulder.