Discovery

Chapter Five

            A voice murmuring next to her was Clarissa’s first awareness as she came fully awake. Alarmed, she tried to sit up but was held in place by a hand on her forehead. The hand was holding a cold cloth and drops of water were pooling on her eyelids.

            “Slowly,” a woman’s voice admonished her. “If you sit up too fast you might pass out again. You’ve had an exciting day.”

            Memory came crashing back and Clarissa groaned and tried to sit up again. She was successful this time and gratefully accepted the cloth from the strange woman.

            “We always get one or two that faint at every Searching,” the woman informed her, handing her a glass of sweet, red juice. “Drink this,” she instructed. “You need the sugar. I’d say you also need to eat more at meals too.”

            Sourly, Clarissa accepted the juice, remembering Jerne’s warning that she should eat a good breakfast. Sipping carefully she looked around the room. “Where am I?” she asked.

            “They brought you to your new room,” the woman replied. “Now that you’ve found your partner, you get to move to the paired student wing. The rooms are much larger and nicer,” she added. Looking around, Clarissa had to agree. The bed she was sitting on was large and comfortable and the furniture in the room was nice too: dark-stained, carved wood. “I think the rest are just about done the Search by now,” the woman guessed. “You’ll be fine. Just drink the rest of that and stay rested for a little while. I’ll send someone to fetch you,” she promised.

            The woman left once she finished the juice and Clarissa lay back on the bed again, pulling the covers over her head. She didn’t want anyone to come and fetch her. What was the point? Her life was over. She hadn’t failed the Search and she had a ham-handed peasant farmer for a mage partner. By law she was now one of the king’s most honoured and revered servants, set above and beyond all others for her selfless service to the realm. That was supposed to be a good thing, an unbelievable honour both to her and her family. Her parents would gain great prestige for producing a daughter who could become one of a mage-pair. She however might be sentenced to a life of travel and danger and possibly even to go to war against the Hissings once she was fully trained. Her father had claimed that the war would be over long before then but from the rumours she’d heard here about how the war effort was going, Clarissa wasn’t so sure. The Hissings were apparently stubbornly all refusing to die easily! Regardless, she would never live in her own manor estate and run her wealthy husband’s affairs. She wouldn’t likely be going to parties and balls and would probably be eating travel rations rather than anything made by trained cooks for most of her life. Her wardrobe would consist of practical travel clothes rather than the beautiful gowns she’d grown up wearing. The thought was enough to make her cry so she buried her face in her pillow and wept quietly.

A knock sounded at the door and she ignored it, curling up into a ball and making sure the blankets were over her head. It sounded again, more forcefully this time and still she ignored it. The sound of the door opening and closing made her secure the blankets over top of her. The mattress dipped a little at the edge as someone’s weight settled onto the bed.

“Your life isn’t over,” Trin’s voice said rather unsympathetically.

“Just go away,” she told the woman in between sobs. “What would you know about my life anyway?”

“Actually I know a lot about it Clarissa, daughter of House Tamoren. Do you have any idea what my name was before Dris named me Trin?” Clarissa didn’t bother to answer. Who cared what the woman’s original name was anyway? “I was known as Trinity Saer,” Trin admitted.