Potent: Book 1

Chapter 30: Acclimation

At Evin's concerned look, he laughed again.

The whole rest of the evening felt strange and wrong, as if she dreamed it rather than lived it. There was a dining room downstairs situated near the huge kitchen where students and masters gathered to eat. If others weren't staring at her and her clothing, they were asking her inane questions.

"Where are you from?"

"Liminey."

"Where's that?"

This exchange happened about fifteen times during the course of her meal. The cooks set out platters and baskets of succulent repast, but some of the flavours were unfamiliar to her and she tried to chew slowly, taking in her surroundings and trying to appear normal. This is fine, she kept thinking to herself. You're fine. She knew the smile on her face was wooden, but endeavored to keep it there anyway.

As odd as it was to join this community so abruptly, she knew it would have been worse to cower in silence in her room.

Evin felt as though she'd become an entirely different person; that this expression of herself was as new to her as it was to the others. She'd never thought of her personality as quiet or shy, but she fell easily into a passive, responsive sort of role in shared conversation. Speculatively, she thought that some wine might have helped.

Deryk and Jess were there, of course. And she met a young female student named Bela and her friend Pikkia. There was a loudmouth who kept joking and complaining about the food—his name was Diarmad. He tried to flirt with her initially, but left her alone when he couldn't wring a reaction from her. She didn't see her friend Ger from the temple.

One corner seated several masters, and she noticed Colin Slager among them, his bulk palpable at the conventional table.

She caught his eye and he gave her a wave, which she returned.

Evin gnawed on some cold poultry, figs, and soft, roasted ruveo—flaky and buttery. When her plate was empty, she helped herself to a roadweed salad replete with scattered blooms. If she allowed herself to think too hard about it, she became self-conscious about eating in front of strangers. But that was silly. She was hungry; she ought to eat!

"Leave some roadweed for everyone else," Deryk said beside her, laughing.

She felt her face grow hot, and a few students around them giggled.

She looked up at him reproachfully, and he sighed in response.

"I'm sorry if I'm teasing too much," Deryk said under his breath. "You remind me of my younger sister, and that's how we talk at home. I've been at university for two years already, and I miss her."

Evin sketched a nod at him. She supposed that was all right.

Luckily, the rest of the meal passed quickly, and by eight bells or so, her eyelids had begun to droop. She took her dishes to the kitchen as the other students did, then mounted the staircase.

Her room was strange in the darkness, and Evin was relieved she'd occupied herself for the evening—now she was too tired to think about how the shadows curved oddly and the shapes of discarded clothing in the space recalled strangers slumped over in the gloom.

She fell asleep, and did not dream.

*    *    *

He couldn't wait to get into the water.

Beynon went often to visit the baths in Daitak Keep, and after a physical training session with Kreen out in the courtyards, it was a necessity.

Today they had worked with broadswords, concentrating on focused targeting of an opponent. Beynon found he had the propensity to strike hard and well, but often hit near his intended target rather than in the center of it.