Heir of Fire and Ice

Tests

Elentiya was no longer excited to take the tests. She spent almost all night revising, then got up an hour later for more revision. Lessons were now over, and she had a week to go. She could hardly think through the exhaustion, but somehow found a way to keep going. Keep studying. Most of the time, she forgot to eat, and was becoming increasingly gaunt and pale. She was currently in her room, going through revision notes yet again, but glanced up as Xenia came in.

"Listen, you have to stop acting like this."

"I'm fine."

"You are clearly not."

"If I stop, I'll fall behind."

"Look at me!" Elentiya looked up, startled to see Xenia glaring at her. "This will get you nowhere. If you're exhausted when the test comes, you won't do well. Leave it for two days. Just forty-eight hours. Then we can come back, and I'll quiz you on it."

"No."

"Fine." Xenia snatched the revision notes, papers and books.

"Give that back!"

"No. Not until you do as I say." Now it was Elentiya's turn to glare. "Stop that. I'm doing this for you. Now come on, it's time for dinner."

Admittedly, Elentiya was hungry. She devoured he own food, then most of Xenia's, who surprisingly did not protest. She then ordered more food for herself. Xenia merely watched with a faint smile. Finally, when she was done, they made their way back to the Torre. She tried, again, to get the revision material. To no avail. 

"Sleep. Now."

"When did you turn into such a tyrant?"

"When you started to kill yourself, slowly, through revision."

Elentiya, already asleep, did not answer.

...

Xenia was worried about Elentiya. An understatement. She herself was also taking the test, but unlike Elentiya, she knew how much it was sensible to do. When to stop. And also that she was going to pass, or she would not take the test. It was odd, she mused, that though Elentiya worked harder than any others, was clearly the best, didn't notice. There was a kind of awe the other girls had around her, knowing how dedicated she was. That, at sixteen, she was possibly better than some of their teachers after years of healing. And yet she still didn't notice, thinking everyone else was better. That she had to prove herself at every turn.

What Xenia hadn't told Elentiya, however, was that, though her mother had been raped, and though she was from Antica, it had been in Rifthold. In a brothel. She had been one of the few people in the wrong place at the wrong time when Adarlan conquered Eyllwe, trading silks with locals. She had been taken prisoner, but instead of giving in as so many of the other slaves did on the way to the salt mines of Endovier, she had become one of the soldiers favourite prostitutes. Xenia still burned in rage at the injustice. She had become popular enough to be more useful as a courtesan than as a slave, so they had sold her to Clarisse.

The fae warrior, however, had not been a client. He had stole into her bedroom on the only night a week she had off. She had been allowed to see Xenia on that night, who hadn't know. She had been to young, thankfully, to begin training, but in a few years... She didn't like to think. The fae warrior had given her mother, ironically, enough money to buy her way free, escape back to Antica, where she was verbal in expressing both the crime and Adarlan's cruelty. The fae warrior had found her, tortured her in unspeakable ways, and murdered her.

That was why she was helping Elentiya, she supposed, because even after all her mother had been through, she still spoke out, so that others who were too scared to would not have to. She couldn't tell Elentiya, though she knew the female would understand. It would rip open a wound that had so barely healed over after all these years. The Torre had taken her on early, at her mother's wish. So she would be safer than her mother had ever been.