The story keeps buzzing through my mind. What Lady Talagast told me is as much a revelation as it is useless. I have never heard about the initial six gods of the world or our planet referred to as Arasta. Everything before Parfillio’s disobedience is unknown to me. Could we really have been here for so long before? Could my people have once been masters of the skies? Did we ever have a civilization that might be able to rival even a single elven kingdom?

  It doesn’t seem possible. Humans are weak. Most have more of a grasp on how to flap their arms and take to the air than anything pertaining to magic. The way she explained it, we had vast cities set upon the clouds, ships capable of blocking out the sun with their enormity, and the ability for every man, woman, and child to live free of danger from roaming monsters. It doesn’t seem possible.

  But, even as I think it, all I need to do is glance to the side in the classroom to see a faethian woman tapping her stylus against the magical slate she holds under her desk. She doodles caricatures of different people in the classroom while the professor at the front continues to lecture. Her name is Bridga; she is failing this class, and she can’t figure out why.

  Would it be so different if this girl were a human girl, learning in some similar academy thousands of years ago? I can almost picture it, people who look like me, sitting in a lecture hall, bored out of their minds while the professor at the front covers a topic half the class has mastered and the other half has no interest in.

  I can’t help but bend over my desk and stare at my hands as I flex my fingers. Did we ever have so much? Did the human empire never lead a true crusade against the world? Are we the victims of some ancient grudge between gods?

  No matter how hard I try, I can’t bring myself to believe it wholly. How much of what Lady Talagast told me was religious doctrine? When the gods are involved, I suppose everything devolves into that.

  A half-remembered dream comes to my mind, a vision of a woman watching the end of a civilization from the air. Had that been here in the distant past? A part of me thought that vision had been a fantasy, something conjured by my mind to deal with the first thing I saw when entering that portal. That first vision, the horror and devastation of it all, I can still only barely recall. That was one of the things to come, even with how hazy the memory is, I know that for certain. That woman, annihilating more monsters in a single instant than I could have ever imagined to live, I had thought she was a figment of my imagination, a safety blanket to cling to after the prophetic horror that came before. But there had been a man as well, The One Who Watches the Thrones, The Captain. Who was he? Who is he?

  Questions. Too many questions.

  Staring down at my hands, I find myself scratching my fingerbeds with my thumbnail again. The pain of the scratch is a sharp flicker against the dull gray. It comes in beats, almost like music.

  There is movement, or more accurately, the suggestion of it. I see the naked feet out of the corner of my eye. They stand next to me, not even a foot away. The skin is charred black, broken, and weeping pus in places, while the toenails curl unnaturally and split. I’ve long grown accustomed to the world; the wind never leeches my warmth away, but the chill that radiates through me cools my bones so much that they might crack. I can’t help but smile, staring down at my scratching hands, trying not to look directly at the burned feet standing next to me. Which of them is it, I wonder. Will I shriek when I look up and see his face? How long has it been since I slept?

  “Ms. Devardem?”

  Somehow, the sound of my name cuts through the buzzing of the world. When I glance up, the specter is gone. A few faces turn in my direction, while most look on at the large board at the front of the lecture hall, bored. Professor Mallis is a squat man, even for a dwarf. The stick he uses to draw flowing blue lines on the display board at the front of the lecture hall is easily three times his height in length, but he wields it like a fencer. He strokes his beard, cooking up a witticism as he taps the equation written across the board.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “Is Integration by Parts so dull that you fall asleep during my lecture?” he asks after failing to think of anything clever.

  “I wasn’t sleeping,” I say. “I was just thinking very hard.” I get fewer laughs for the reply than I deserve.

  “Well, if you were thinking so deeply, you might then be able to solve this for us,” he says, tapping the board once again.

  “I was thinking so deeply because I have difficulty with it,” I try. The professor merely taps the board again with his long stick.

  As the day stretches toward night, I don’t realize that I have forgotten to eat until well after the school stores have closed. I find my mind continuing to wander. I don’t like what it does when it wanders.

  Luckily for me, my last class on Thirdday is an elective course, smithing. The constant heat of the forge is like a soothing balm to my tired mind, and I work through the two-hour class with frenzied focus. Of all the classes that I have elected to take at the academy, this elective class is by far the most calming for me. Beating bars of hot metal with a hammer, dousing materials in water, and shaping with both my strength and magic is such a relaxing way to let go of my mind that I am surprised I am the only woman in the class. The male students love it, and they let me know. If you ever want to feel good about yourself, be the giant woman in a forge with a bunch of young men, lifting slabs of hot iron more than three times your weight with your bare hands. The high is hard to beat.

  Unfortunately, it has the downside of absolutely ruining whatever clothes you bring with sweat and soot, requiring a change immediately after class. Luckily for me, I bring most of my wardrobe with me wherever I go. What I don’t have in my vault is a tub, however. It’s too much of a hassle.

  Faeth is as quiet as it ever gets as I make my way home from the academy. The constant drone persists. The feeling of movement beneath my feet as hundreds of miles of walkways move beneath the city is a constant, but the night air is chill, especially after the heat of my final class. My mind turns back to the story spun for me by Lady Talagast two days before. How much can I trust? How much can I believe?

  In the end, I conclude that I am going to have to ask Dovik for the Willian version of history to compare. The man doesn’t show it, but I have sensed zealotry from him before. Would I even be able to trust that version either? I both need to know and want to dismiss it all as irrelevant. What does a history thousands of years old have to do with me? Even the more recent pieces that happened in the last thousand years aren’t things I can affect or can directly affect me. Why should I care? Yet, I can’t shake the feeling that it is important. There are details I still need to learn.

  The new, heavy door to the penthouse requires three separate keys to open. I don’t mind it, as I can store a thousand keys if I want. Dovik just teleports through.

  Just as I am thinking about the man, I find him sitting in a chair just inside the penthouse, looking toward the far window. There is an open letter on the table in front of him, and he turns to look at me as I close the door.

  “Just the man I was thinking about,” I say, pulling the tie out of my hair and letting it down as I get inside. “I was told today by a classmate that there is going to be another holiday soon. Apparently, Faeth has a major holiday most months. Sounds a bit greedy to me.”

  “Charlene.” His eyes look worse than they did before, cracks of blue light bleeding into the brown. The white of his sclera is almost entirely gone, replaced by red veins and pink flesh. It doesn’t escape my notice that the skin around his eyes is red; he’s been crying. “Charlene, we need to talk.”

  “Can it wait until after I have bathed?” I ask, trying to get out of the room as quickly as possible. I care about him, but I won’t be of any good to him right now. Better not to even talk to me with how scattered my mind is.

  Before I can make it to the hall, Dovik appears in front of me, his arms stretched wide to make it impossible for me to move around him. Despite the wear on his face, he appears calm. He speaks in a soothing voice, the same kind you would use to relax a scared mare. “I received a letter today.”

  “Who sends you letters?” My eyes drift past him toward the open door of my bedroom at the end of the hall, toward safety and seclusion.

  “My mother does,” he says, trying and failing to smile. “Charlene, she wrote me about good news. Jess woke up.”

  I stagger back a step, more stung by the words than if he had hit me. The pressing anxiety, the boneweariness, drains away in an instant. My focus returns, and I grab it with both hands, holding onto it for dear life. “Oh,” I manage to say. That is all I manage to say.

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